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THE WHITE DAWN 


IM BELLE (HAGEN) WINSLOW 



MINNEAPOUS, MINN. 
AUGSBURG PUBLISHING HOUSE 
1920 



Copyright, 1920 , by 
Augsburg Publishing House 
Minneapolis, Minn. 



©CLAeossis 

I 


To my Parents, 

®Ilor A. Ifagftt atth 3ngebnrg If. ffagrtt. 

this book is dedicated. 

They are, God bless them, still with us. 


FEB -1 192i 


PREFACE 


Just as I am about to write a few words of greet- 
ing to commend to you this wonderful book, which 
takes us back to Norse Mythology, America awakes 
to the problems of reconstruction. These burning 
questions, which a world-peace brings, must take us 
back to the nations of the Old World. 

The reader will herein find a new understanding 
in social and religious thought. There is need of 
Viking courage now, that we may make peace the 
most militant thing in all the world. There is need 
of sympathy, that we may understand each other in 
this new brotherhood of man. There is need of per- 
sonal purity. There is need of a true religion, with- 
out which we, too, must sink in the slough of deso- 
lation. 

There is need of a broader vision on the extended 
horizon of a new, dawning day. 

(Signed) 

Hejnri^tta Pauuson Haagense:n, a. B. 

Hillsboro, N. D., May 25. 1919. 



CHAPTER I 


HE flaring lights of many candles illuminated 
the festive board of Thorold the Strong, son 
of Sigvat Skaldaspiller. At its head he sits, 
large and florid, his hair thick and ruddy. Ruddy 
too is his wavy beard, rippling over his broad bosom, 
His features are large and strong, his eyes are steely 
blue, his deportment is dignified, almost haughty. 
Along both sides of the table sit friends and re- 
tainers. Near the “high-seat,” occupied by the mas- 
ter, sit the relatives and close friends; below them, 
the retainers and servants, themselves the offspring 
of those who, in their time, served Thorold’s pro- 
genitors. 

The huge trenchers of bread and meat had been 
emptied and the honey-cakes were brought on. Now 
the mead flowed freely. Skaal after skaal they drank, 
to the pagan kings, to Odin, to Thor, to a dozen 
lesser deities. Then the sound of the harps drew the 
young people into the dance, while Thorold was left 
at the table with the older men, faithful friends to 
him thru many a bout. 

“Sing us now songs of the old kings and our 
Norse gods !” he cried, nodding to a young skald 
whp^ idly Jl^aning against the wall behind him, stood 



10 


THB WHITE DAWN 


tensely watching a young girl as she flitted past 
with her partner in the dance, ''Sing, Oyvind, sing, 
for this purpose I brought you into my holdings !” 

With a straightening, as if just roused from a 
dream, Oyvind took the harp and, with practiced 
fingers, awakened the sweet spirit of his loved instru- 
ment. His eyes flashed as he played. The young 
blood ran riot in his veins and stained his cheeks, for 
Gunlaug, daughter of Thorold the Strong, sent him 
a look that more than made up for his enforced 
stay among the older men. 

'Tt is true, my friends,” continued the host in his 
mighty roar, turning to those around the table, "the 
White Christ must be worshiped in the church built 
for that purpose, now that Olaf has so ordained; but 
here in my hall, among my friends, here shall our 
old gods be held in reverence. Ye comfortable old 
gods, we drink to you!” 

Oyvind the Skald was two and twenty, tall and 
slender, with a shock of yellow hair, which was in- 
clined to curl. The beauty of his face, with its fresh 
coloring and delicately chiseled features, might well 
have been envied by a beautiful woman. His hands 
were small and well formed, his movements were as 
graceful as the panther’s walk. In his large, purple 
eyes lay the soul of a dreamer. Many were the 
bright eyes that slyly sought his, many the girl- 
hearts that fluttered in sudden agitation in his pres- 
ence. 

But to Oyvind only one pair of eyes, only one 


THB WHITE DAWN 


11 


form had any meaning. Without Gunlaug, daughter 
of Thor old the Strong, the happiest throng became 
but a sad gathering; the dreariest place that held her 
straightway became an earthly paradise, with singing 
birds and a wonder of grass and flowers. 

Not only was Gunlaug the daughter of the richest 
man in Lesje, she was the handsomest woman in the 
valley. In many respects she was different from 
the blue-eyed, flaxen-haired maidens of her acquaint- 
ance. Thorold had been a far-going Viking in his 
day. From an expedition to the south he had 
brought with him one who, the saying went, was 
beautiful beyond the right of mortal woman. It was 
said her complexion was made of milk and blood, 
that her eyes were soft and black, like the blackest 
velvet from Frankland, but in their depths slumbered 
a fire that frightened all but Thorold. 

Gunlaug had inherited her mother’s beauty of 
face and form. Her eyes were a mixture of velvety 
black and steely blue, resulting in a soft grey brown 
that reflected her every emotion in their clear pools. 
Her hair was coal-black and her complexion would 
have presented a baffling challenge to any artist, am- 
bitious of immortalizing his prowess in the repro- 
duction of the damask and the waxy white, strug- 
gling for mastery in her perfectly featured counte- 
nance. As the daughter of Thorold she would have 
been a queen in any gathering, even without her 
beauty; as it was, no one nourished any jealousy nor 
attempted to dispute with her the place of supremacy. 


12 


THB WHITE DAWN 


She was so far out of their class that their personal 
feelings entered not in at all in their regard of her. 
Hal she been a queen, in reality she could not have 
been farther removed from them, tho she was present 
in every gathering and carried herself precisely as 
the other maidens the country had produced. 

Gradually the old Vikings fell under the influence 
of the mead, and with more noise than music they 
threw themselves into the songs, stamping their 
feet, clinking their filled bowls, laughing, cursing, 
drinking. Oyvind knew at what moment he could 
escape. After a long, tense look into Gunlaug’s eyes, 
as she came swinging towards him in the dance, he 
hung his harp on the wall and left the room. 

With quick steps he walked into the wedge- 
shaped shadow of a giant pine, lying inky black 
across the scintillating surface of the new-fallen 
snow. It was Candlemas night. They had gathered 
early that morning, for there was much to do. First 
the remembrance cups of the Asa-gods were blessed, 
according to old forms. The young horses and 
cattle had been slain and the dishes had been sprin- 
kled with their blood. The preceding summer had 
been cold and dry, resulting in a meagre crop of 
corn, and this, was the day to bespeak the Asa-gods’ 
aid for the following year. Accordingly, every cere- 
mony was accompanied by prayers for a good sea- 
son. They trembled, too, as they made their offer- 
ings. Evidently the old gods were angry that the 
people of Eesje had accepted Christianity. But now 


THU WHITE DAWM 13 

it was all over, only the feasting and dancing were 
left. 

Presently Gimlaug emerged at a side entrance. 
A faint sound, like a night-bird’s call, led her to 
Oyvihd. First he found her hands, then he drew her 
into his arms. 

“I love you, Gunlaug!” he whispered, “you are 
the sweetest, the most beautiful being on earth ! 
Just now, while I was compelled to sing for those 
old men and watch while you danced, first with one, 
then with another, I thought my heart would break. 
I had to see you ! Thank you for coming ! Thank 
you for listening! In my station of life I have no 
right to speak of my love, it would be meet that I 
should perish of loneliness rather than so speak to 
the daughter of Thorold the Strong, son of Sigvat 
Skaldaspiller 1” 

Her hands went up around his neck and she 
pressed her burning cheek close to his face. “No ! 
No !” she murmured. “Don’t say that. I am glad 
you spoke. Glad you told me. Had you not, perhaps 
I should have perished in my despair. Did I think 
you loved another woman the spirit of my southern 
mother would perhaps rise up in me and I should 
do her harm ! The fierce blood they say runs in me 
would not suffer a rival to live! But now, come 
what will, this happiness of knowing that you love 
me will never pass.” Her voice trembled, and from 
her emotions she swayed in his arms like a reed in 
the wind. 


14 


THE WHITE DAWN 


“Is there any hope for me, Gunlaug?” he asked 
eagerly, “I shall do what you ask me to do. I shall 
no longer wander among the forest and mountains 
interpreting the wonderful music of nature. I shall 
hang my harp on the wall and go on Viking-raids. 
I will go to Gardarike, whither an expedition will 
soon be on the way. Many a poor man has found 
riches and renown in the land of the Russ.” 

“Don’t lay up disappointment for yourself in such 
vain hopes,” whispered the girl ; “that would not 
appeal to my father. He wants me to marry a land- 
owner who can give me a good living and as many 
maidens in the servants’ quarters as I now possess. 
You might return a Russ jarl, and it would not move 
him. Perhaps this very night he decides whom I 
shall wed.” 

She shivered, for she remembered Gunstein the 
Brave, who that moment sat drinking with her 
father. He had sent her such appraising glances 
while she moved about the dance. It had filled her 
with such a strange fear. 

“But if I secure the riches by which I can buy 
for you the things your father desires his daughter 
to possess?” persisted Oyvind. 

“My father would not let me wait, my skald,” 
she whispered, “even now he may have chosen him 
whom I must wed.” 

Oyvind made no reply, only held her a little 
closer as in defiance of any one who might attempt 
to take her from him. 


THE WHITE DAWN 


15 


'‘There is only one thing we can do/’ she mur- 
mured ; “as long as I am free I shall come to you, 
like this, till we are discovered. Tonight I am free, 
the gods know for how long!” 

“You shall not be wed to any one against your 
wishes!” he declared fiercely, “I will not suffer it, 
Gunlaug! I shall find a way! I shall steal you! 
I may sell my soul to the Christians’ Devil, but I’ll 
never allow any one to take you from me lest you 
so wish!” 

“Don’t, Oyvind !” she protested, shuddering. 
“Don’t mock at the Christians’ Devil! The White 
Christ is a much greater God than the ^ser, whom 
the men still worship, and I am afraid of the Chris- 
tians’ Devil! The good priests tell us he is worse 
than the Jjz^tuls and the Frost Giants, that he reigns 
over a region far worse than the one of Hel, goddess 
of the shades, and there is no escape from him after 
he has once reached his claws into you. I better 
pray to the White Christ and His Holy Mother that 
They forgive that dreadful speech. Perhaps the Vir- 
gin will help us, as Freya has been known to help 
unhappy lovers. And, listen ! No longer do we hear 
the harps, Oyvind! You must let me go lest we be 
missed and suspicion aroused at once.” 

A few days after the feast a rider stopped in 
Thorold’s tun. He bore a messenger-token from 
Olaf, calling Thorold the Strong to Nidaros. 

Olaf was very angry when the old Viking came 
before him. 


16 


THE WHITE DAWN 


“What is it I hear of thee and the people of 
Lesje?” he asked sharply. “Didst not thou and all 
thy people accept the White Christ when my laws 
were read to your binder, assembled in Thing, and 
did I not then make thee my lens-man? Now I have 
learned that, at Candlemas-tide, thou, with thy 
friends and people, hadst a feast, blessing the re- 
membrance cups and making sacrificial ofYerings to 
the ^ser? Is it so you do in Lesje?” 

“We had no other feasts than our friendly drink- 
ing-parties,” replied Thorold with dignity. “What 
may have been told you that should have fallen from 
our lips, how do I know? Lesje’s people, mothers’ 
men of good understanding, would take care not to 
use such language. But from using foolish and 
drunken talk I can not keep the people.” 

“But I understand that you have feasts round 
about where you offer to the ^ser for peace and a 
good season,” persisted Olaf. 

“We have had Yule-feasts and Candlemas feasts 
round the district,” returned Thorold diplomatically, 
“and our people do not prepare their feasts so spar- 
ingly that there is not something left over that can 
be consumed afterwards. It is hard, at times, to 
know who may partake. My holdings are large, 
with many houses. From far and near people come, 
and it is a joy to drink together, many in one com- 
pany.” 

Olaf knew Thorold lied. When he bade him 
godspeed he said: 


THE WHITE DAWN 


17 


“I shall come to Lesje, Thorold, sooner or later, 
then I shall come to the truth of what you are telling 
me. So if you and your people have overstepped 
the bonds laid upon you by the White Christ and 
the Holy Church, do not try it again!” 

Then Thorold went home. He sent messenger- 
tokens all about the valley, and when they met to- 
gether he said to his men : 

“I have come from Nidaros, where I went in 
answer to Olafs command. He is enraged. He 
thinks, since he had made me his lens-man, I should 
have kept you to the new faith. He has an eye on 
Lesje, and we must have a care lest we be found 
guilty of disobeying his laws. That Olaf finds illy 
done, and it will mean that some of us will lose eye 
or limb, be taken into strange places as hostages, or 
laid in irons. From now on it behooves us well to 
be on the lookout against those who carry tales to 
Olaf.” 


CHAPTER II 


FTECT INTER gave way to spring — spring in the 
Northland, where the tender green of the 
birch against the sombre background of the 
pine and spruce forests makes a pleasing pattern 
which, in its restfulness, is never seen except in 
the North. Spring had returned with its myriad 
birds, among which the nightingale sang his wonder- 
ful love-notes, and with its balmy, transparent nights, 
during which the sun barely sets. 

Gunlaug was always abroad then, and at that 
season of the year no one ever tried to keep 
her indoors. Often at peep of dawn she left her 
home to wander among the trees and the mountains 
all day, perhaps till far into the night. She loved 
the beauty of her wild surroundings, she reveled in 
the sweet scents of growing things, and she talked 
to the girds and animals. These had no fear of the 
silver-voiced maiden and she, in turn, knew not the 
need of fear. Perhaps there were dangerous animals 
and even more dangerous men, but she knew noth- 
ing of either. She enjoyed the free life of the wood- 
land fawn as soon as the welcome visitor, spring, 
had reached into the deep valley, where, for genera- 
tions, her forefathers had made their homes. 


THB WHITE DAWN 


19 


There was one place where she especially loved 
to linger. It was in a deep grotto, cut into the 
perpendicular wall of the mountain, rising high 
above its fellows, called Ditmorpiggen. It was a 
little hard of access, but by climbing upward, zigzag 
fashion, and high above the grotto, she could let 
herself down to a narrow ledge leading to the mouth 
of the cave. The floor of the cavern was covered 
with a deep layer of sand, the result of centuries’ 
erosion, mingled with dry leaves, sent in by the 
wind. After entering, which was accomplished by 
getting down on one’s knees, there was room for 
the tallest man to stand upright, and the floor cov- 
ered, roughly speaking, about twelve feet square. 

The place was to become still dearer to Gunlaug, 
for one day she met Oyvind near Ditmorpiggen. 
His face turned crimson at the sight of her. With 
a sudden spring he stood before her, arms out- 
stretched. 

‘T was just wondering how it would seem to meet 
you in the woods !” he cried. “I can scarcely believe 
my own senses ! Almost I fear I have encountered 
an elf-maiden who has taken your form to bewitch 
me ! Who knows but she’ll resume her natural ap- 
pearance in my embrace?” 

A sudden chill struck her heart. Then she shook 
it off and laughed shyly up at him. “Pray that you 
never come nearer to the elf-maidens than now, Oy- 
vind,” she said with whimsical solemnity. “From 
me they are ever far away.” 


20 


THE WHITE DAWN 


In obedience to her request he climbed the moun- 
tain with her. Then carefully they glided downward 
to the ledge, which they followed till they stood be- 
fore the grotto. Then they stooped and crept within. 

“How wonderful! It must have been made for 
unfortunate lovers, without a portion, this light and 
airy little cavern, Gunlaug!” he cried as they sat to- 
gether among the sand and leaves, her head against 
his breast. 

“I, too, have thought so,” she smiled back at 
him. “Could I let you know when I come here, this 
should be our trysting-place, Oyvind. We must 
think of some signal by which to let each other know 
we are present here.” 

“Would it be well for you?” asked Oyvind wist- 
fully. “Might not your father discover that you 
meet the poor, unportioned skald here, in this lonely 
mountain cavern? Might it not bring you trouble, 
dearest ?” 

“Let trouble come!” she cried with eyes ablaze, 
“I dare risk anything for your love, your companion- 
ship ! What lies in the future, this I know not, 
now Fm free ! Even now my father may have chosen 
him whom I must wed. When I am a wife it’ll be 
too late ; till then I shall follow my own inclinations, 
unless you, Oyvind, are afraid.” 

“I ?” he laughed. Then he grew serious. “Have 
you any preference?” he asked jealously, “is there 
any one you wish him to select for you?” 

“Yes,” she replied demurely, “there is one.” 


THB WHITU DAWN 


21 


He sat up, stiff and forbidding; with a jerk he 
withdrew his arms from about her and folded them 
across his breast. “Of course, it would be too much 
if I should venture to ask his name?” he murmured, 
pale and trembling. 

Gunlaug laughed a low, rippling, teasing laugh. 
“Of course you may ask, and don’t you wish I’d 
tell?” she returned, looking up at him from the 
corners of her eyes. 

A vivid flame burned in his eyes, a slow white 
wave crept around his mouth, but he was silent. At 
last Gunlaug felt pity for his suffering. 

“Dearest,” she whispered, “his name is Oyvind 
the Skald !” 

He opened his arms to her and she crept back, 
with her head nestling against his side. She felt how 
his heart pounded as if it would break from its nar- 
row prison. His face was no longer white, but the 
flame in his eyes continued, tho not the white flame 
of pain and disappointment. It was one equally 
deadly, and in it there lurked the greatest danger to 
the unwary lovers. 


CHAPTER III 


« HE glorious spring days not only tended to 
feed the flame of love that burned in the 
hearts of Oyvind and Gunlaug, they also 
brought back to life the tiny spark lurking among 
the ashes of the past. Gunlaug’s fear that night in 
February had not been unfounded. Gunstein the 
Brave, so called from his many Viking-raids, was 
rapidly throwing off the grief for his deceased spouse 
and had begun to look for someone to occupy the 
place of the dear defunct at his fire-side. For six 
years she had slumbered in the grave which was dug 
for her and which, since the advent of the White 
Christ, had been consecrated by the priest. There 
let her rest. His fifteen-year-old daughter needed a 
firmer hand than that of his aged aunt. The boys 
needed attention, too. 

Above all he needed a closer companion than any 
he had now, and he wanted a maiden, young, strong, 
and comely. He had not far to go. He had kept 
an eye on Gunlaug, daughter of Thorold the Strong, 
son of Sigvat Skaldaspiller. She was the one woman 
worthy of him. He would ride out to her father’s 
gaard and bid her fair. 

The blood of kings flowed in Gunlaug’s veins. 


THB WHITE DAWN 


23 


Thorold was the son of Gunhild, daughter of Earl 
Halfdan and Ingeborg, who was daughter of Harald 
Haarfagre, the first king to rule the whole of Norse- 
land. Adding to this that Thorold was the king’s 
lens-man and held more land in fief than any one 
else in Lesje, it is easy to see that Gunstein might 
well be proud to bid the maiden fair. In the matter 
of Viking-raids, none in Lesje could compete with 
Gunstein, none could boast so loudly as he nor so 
long. He had often sworn there was only one wo- 
man worthy to fill the big place at his side, Gunlaug, 
daughter of Thorold, the loveliest and mpst loved 
woman in all of Lesje. 

Now that the time for going a-courting had ar- 
rived, he routed out his men. After they all had 
made themselves tidy, he set out with them, in state, 
as it behooves a man of his station, bent upon an 
important mission. 

The old Viking presented a heroic figure as, 
astride his horse, he set out ahead of his dozen 
house-carls, towards the broad highway, leading to 
Thorold’s holdings. He wore a round cap, fitting 
tightly, and hiding the bald pate that bespoke ad- 
vancing age. His short coat was buttoned with a 
double row of silver buttons. His grey vadmel 
breeches were held about the knees by newly polished 
silver buckles. His legs were covered with spirally 
wound vadmel, ending in low cow-hide shoes, also 
resplendent with silver buckles. 

Thorold’s men met him at the gate and took the 


24 


THB WHITB DAWN 


horse. Gunstein jumped lightly to the ground and, 
with outstretched hand, walked towards Thorold, 
who was coming to meet him. 

“Good day. Friend Thorold, and thanks for when 
last we met greeted Gunstein. 

“Thanks to yourself,” returned Thorold with a 
grip few men could have endured. “Call your men,” 
he went on hospitably, “my knaves shall take their 
beasts while the wenches in the servant quarters will 
gladly see after such stalwart carls as yours. In the 
meantime you and I shall have a dish of mead and 
a honey-cake in my hall.” 

Side by side the two sturdy old men walked 
towards the guest-hall, a long structure across the 
tun from Gunlaug’s buildings. 

Trenchers with meat and bread, pewter plates 
heaped high with honey-cakes and beakers of mead 
were set before the master and his guest, while they 
talked of wind and weather. They talked of the last 
expedition to Gardarike, of Bishop GrimkeFs harsh 
measures, of Thorold’s visit to Nidaros. They seemed 
glad to lay their tongues to any subject except that 
next to their hearts. The etiquette of the occasion 
demanded that the real errand should come out, as 
an afterthought, when the seemingly important busi- 
ness had been dispatched. 

At last Gunstein cleared his throat. “I came in a 
weighty errand,” he began. “It is bearing in upon 
me, my friend Thorold, that I need some one to take 
the place of my dear, departed Ingegjerd. Whom 


THE WHITE DAWN 


25 


should I then bid fair but the most beautiful maiden 
of the North, Gunlaug, daughter of my old friend, 
Thorold the Strong, son of Sigvat Skaldaspiller ?” 

Thorold in turn cleared his throat. Then he 
replied with proper dignity : 

“And for this I thank you. Whom should I as 
lief see ride into my holdings and bid me fair for my 
daughter as Gunstein the Brave, than whom none is 
richer in worldly goods, than whom none is more 
respected in Lesje, than whom none has a stronger 
heart in his breast! Added to all this, you are the 
friend of my youth. My consent to your suit I shall 
give, and I can also promise that of the girl, for she 
has been reared in the fear of the White Christ and 
obedience to her father. Bide here, Gunstein, I will 
hence to bring the maiden. From her own lips you 
shall hear your answer.” 

“Remember, Thorold, there must be no pressure 
made to bear upon the maid,” returned Gunstein 
with a touch of hauteur, “there are enough maidens 
in the Northland would gladly be bride to Gunstein 
the Brave. I was happy with my cherished Inge- 
gjerd, for she loved me ; I would my second wife 
would do likewise.” 

A light cloud sat for a moment on Thorold’s 
forehead. “No need is there for pressure,” he re- 
plied a little sharply, “my daughter, since Olaf forbade 
the old gods, has been brought up to obey her father 
and fear the Lord. I shall bring her to you. In her 
father’s guest-hall you shall bid the maiden fair.” 


26 


THE WHITE DAWN 


But Thorold returned with empty hands to the 
impatient suitor. Nowhere was Gunlaug to be found. 
Shortly after this Gunstein rode away with his carls, 
having exchanged with his friend mutual promises 
of felicity and faithfulness. Gunstein promised, too, 
that he would again ride into Thorold’s gaard, then 
to receive the coveted bride. 


CHAPTER IV 


UNLAUG had been the first one to see Gun- 
stein as he rode in with his men. The gala 
costume he wore and the retinue of carls, 
accompanying him, made it easy to guess the nature 
of his errand. Like a flash it came to her, that ap- 
praising look from him, when she danced at the cele- 
bration of Candlemas. He had not been so far gone 
under the influence of the mead as the other men 
and she feared Gunstein had guessed her meeting 
with Oyvind that night. 

It occurred to her, too, that Gunstein would not 
need to ask twice for her. It was to such a man 
her father would pledge her or not at all. In sudden 
panic she made her way into the woods, which 
quickly shut her out of sight from the home build- 
ings. 

Two young women, her cousin Gunhild and the 
maid Ylve, sat outside the women’s hall and saw 
Gunstein’s arrival and the reception he received at 
Thorold’s hands. Gunhild sighed. 

“I fear me that my father’s brother will mate our 
young lady with the old Gunstein the Brave,” she 
said. She was a year older than Gunlaug, but after 
Thorold’s second wife, Thora, had died, the girl had 



28 


THE WHITE DAWN 


stayed and looked after her cousin as if she had been 
an older sister. 

“And it fares but ill if he does,” added Ylve, “it 
is but poor policy to mate young blood with such 
an old, heathen relic. Also, methinks she^ has found 
him her heart lists.” 

“Wist ye that!” cried Gunhild with a quick look 
about her. “Have you, too, a suspicion that she 
finds him in the forest? Have you, too, observed 
that her wanderings are more frequent, her stay 
more prolonged than ever before? She scarcely 
sleeps under roof. The forest and mountains have 
her by day and by night.” 

“Yes, I have observed it,” replied Ylve. “She 
has no fear of the bear, of the wolf, nor of any other 
wild things that prowl in the forest and among the 
naked crags. Something there is to protect her. Me- 
thinks it is a lover.” 

“And still, can we blame the child?” cried Gun- 
hild with trembling lips. “I may have been wrong 
not to watch her more closely, but how could I? 
For a few glorious weeks now she is free to roam, 
to love, where her heart chooses. Then Thorold 
will wed her to Gunstein or some other equally rich 
and equally far from pleasing our fair lady. After 
that her freedom is gone. Thereafter she will be as 
in a cage, and there will be no deliverance. These 
old codgers are hearty, you know, and bid fair to 
live long. Perhaps, however, I have done wrong 
in letting her come and go in that manner, according 


THE WHITE DAWN 


29 


to her own sweet desire. Sometimes I fear that a 
lifetime of agony may have to pay for this her 
brief period of happiness. I like not this visit from 
Gunstein the Brave. It bodes ill for our sweet maid.” 

Happily they were both unable to answer Thor- 
old when he came and craved news of his daughter’s 
whereabouts. 

“Her way leads into the forest,” said Gunhild, 
“and always she comes back unharmed. Such is her 
nature that she returns more sprightly, more lovely, 
each time she goes.” 

“Yes, yes,” mumbled Thorold. Gunlaug was the 
pride of his heart, the joy of his existence, so like 
the adored Bianca, the mate of his youth. Bianca, 
child of the sun, who in the cold Northland had 
perished among the staid people of his kind. He 
had loved the beautiful woman, whom he had stolen 
from her sunny home, with an intensity peculiar to 
his nature. For this reason he had never been able 
to deny his child her desire to roam in the wilds. 
It had often worried him, too, this strange infatua- 
tion for the forest. In the Northland forest and 
mountain were endowed with a spirit conceived as 
a sinister force in the lives of individuals. But even 
tho Thorold had been lenient in this, it did not 
follow that he would yield to her entreaties in case 
she asked to be relieved of Gunstein. Gunhild wiped 
away the hot tears as she sat watching Thorold re- 
turn to the guest-hall. In her mind Gunlaug was 
already as good as married to the old man. 


30 


THB WHITE DAWN 


In the meantime Gunlaug had dipped into the 
forest and was on her way to Ditmorpiggen. Over 
the thick carpet of pine-needles that silenced her 
tread she hurried towards her place of refuge, the 
grotto. Practically every day since she first met 
Oyvind near there they had met in the cavern, and 
many a happy hour had they spent in their cozy 
trysting-place. Oyvind was a wanderer, a dreamer, 
ever searching out the hidden melodies in the forest, 
glen, and mountain, and his aunt, his only relative, 
never knew where to find him. Not that it really 
mattered, however, for the wheels of the simple home 
machinery turned with equal precision whether Oy- 
vind lounged in the shade by the wall, coaxing out 
the new melodies from the strings of his harp, or 
tramping into the farthest corner of the valley in his 
restless search. 

This was the time of day when Oyvind usually 
came to the grotto. She hoped and prayed that he 
might be there. Would the stump be as he had left 
it the foregone day, or would it be turned to tell her 
he was waiting? 

It lay as she had left it. He had not yet arrived 
at the trysting-place. Hastily turning the stump to 
show that she had passed, and would be in the grotto, 
she sped on. With frantic haste she climbed up- 
wards, then she glided down till she stood on the 
ledge. The next moment she had crawled inside. 


CHAPTER V 


HE had spent some little time in the grotto 
when rolling stones clattered down the moun- 
tain side, indicating that someone was com- 
ing. She crept out on the ledge and looked up. The 
smile died on her lip. It was not her lover that 
looked down at her. She saw above her the grin- 
ning countenance of Brynjulf, house-carl of Gunstein 
the Brave. 

Brynjulf had spied upon her on Candlemas night 
and had threatened to expose her, and thereby, to 
her intense mortification, he had compelled her to 
dance with him. She shrank in horror from him, for 
he had been drinking deeply of the ale and mead, 
served in the drenge-quarter, and was now intoxi- 
cated. How she wished she had been more careful! 
She should have known that Brynjulf would watch 
her. She forgot the hold he would have, finding her 
now with Oyvind again, in thinking of the danger 
she read in Brynjulfs lurid looks. 

There was no escape. She could not leave by the 
customary route, for he was blocking the way. She 
could not descend the perpendicular cliff in front. 
She could only wait! She braced herself against the 
rocky wall and stood tensely waiting. Perhaps a 



32 


THB WHITB DAWM 


well-aimed blow would send him reeling to the foot 
of the cliff? 

He had barely touched the ledge with his toes 
when she hurled herself against him. But she had 
reckoned without the brutal strength of the man. He 
stood as firm as Ditmorpiggen itself, grinning down 
into her white face. 

“Just wait, my pretty one!” he sneered, catching 
her by the wrists. “I think we have something to 
settle, you and I, and there is no time like the 
present.” 

The next moment she was struggling in his arms, 
his evil-smelling breath polluting her nostrils, as he 
attempted to lay his face down to hers. 

“Never mind!” he said with a hateful leer, “I 
am not quite so pretty as your skald, but I am some- 
thing more of a man. Besides, you can’t have him, 
you know. It will fit beautifully for us that you 
must take Gunstein. If we work it carefully you 
may be my sweetheart. It will make up to you for 
having to be an old man’s wife. If you are not 
satisfied with that, your secret goes to your father. 
I know more than I learned last second of February, 
too. This is not my first visit to your love-bower, 
and I have looked long for this opportunity of talk- 
ing to you alone. I want to see if you are going 
to show any partiality, my pretty one, between me 
and Oyvind,” he concluded with an insulting grin. 

With an instant wrench she freed herself from his 
strangling arm, threw back her head and uttered a 


THU WHITE DAWN 


33 


piercing scream. Roughly he placed his big, hairy 
hand over her mouth, forced her to her knees and 
with one dexterous swing sent her into the grotto. 

“Now,” he said, as they stood tensely facing one 
another inside, “you see, there’s nothing left for you 
but to give up to me. How can you explain your 
presence here with me now and the unearthly hours 
you have spent here with the skald? When I am 
thru with you, no one will wed you, not Gunstein, 
not even Oyvind! But even if he would, your father 
would see you in your grave before he’d give you 
to a portionless singer of songs. You know all this. 
But if you wed Gunstein, I shall keep still. I shall 
not ask much, a little softer bed than the other men, 
a little more mead, a little better food, a bigger 
measure of ale. As for the rest, I want to know 
why you are so haughty to me and I want you to 
kiss me. We might as well begin now.” 

Gunlaug shuddered. If she could only keep him 
talking! Their hour of tryst was approaching. Oy- 
vind might be on the way. 

“I — I haven’t seen much of you !” she stammered, 
walking backward till she stood with her shoulders 
against the clif¥, her hands stretched out on the bare 
rock at both sides. “You don’t come here very 
often.” 

“I am here now,” he grinned, coming closer to 
her, “and you can willingly give me what I asked 
for, as I can easily take the kiss I’ve humbled myself 

to beg.” 

2 


34 


THB WHITE DAWN 


She shrunk from him as from a reptile when he 
placed his hands on her shoulders and tried to pull 
her towards him. 

“Don’t be so rough ! Stand back !” she panted, 
shoving with her hands against his breast in her 
desperate effort to relieve herself of his hated near- 
ness. “Stand back, and I will do as you wish!” 

With a rough laugh he stepped back, letting his 
arms fall to his sides. She came forward, slowly lifting 
her hands to his shoulders and placing them around 
his neck. When he stooped to receive the promised 
caress she caught with one hand at the coarse hair 
at the nape of his neck, with the other, a death-grip 
at his throat. 

Thus taken unaware he gasped, reeled, tried to 
remove her hand, but she clung in frenzied desper- 
ation. With a cruel clutch at her shoulders he 
brought her to her knees. Her grip held and he, 
too, knelt with her in the sand. A desperate struggle 
ensued and she felt that, in spite of her tenacity, she 
was losing ground. Soon she would have to yield. 
She prayed to the White Christ, to the Virgin Mary, 
to Freya. Under these circumstances she had best 
include them all and play safe. 

His face was growing purple and his breath came 
in gasps, flecking his lips with foam. He was des- 
perate now. Lifting his clenched hand he was about 
to drop a stunning blow on her upturned face. Then 
the dim light of the cave became still further ob- 
scured and they both knew that Oyvind had arrived. 


THE WHITE DAWN 


35 


And so the blow never fell, for Oyvind caught 
the man’s wrist with both his hands and gave it 
such a twist as to bring a howl of rage and pain 
from the bully’s lips. After a short struggle Oy- 
vind pulled the carl out on the ledge. 

“Will you now be peaceable?” he asked in a 
white fury, “or shall I drop you over the cliff and 
save funeral expenses?” 

Brynjulf bared his teeth in a vindictive grin. 

“Little would it serve you to lay death-hand on 
the trusted carl of Gunstein the Brave,” he sneered. 
“Who are you, anyway, that you presume to stand 
in the way of the richest man in Lesje? I shall go 
now, but for this day’s work you shall pay, you and 
that hussy in there. My hand has the cunning to 
strike and also to find the vulnerable spot. You’ll 
hear from me again.” 

With this, accompanied by foul curses, Brynjulf 
made his way from the grotto, and a few moments 
later they saw him at the foot of the cliff, making 
his way back to the forest. 

“In the name of all the gods, how did this man 
come here?” cried Oyvind after they had reentered 
the cave and she was nestling in his arms, sick and 
trembling from fear and exhaustion. “Brynjulf re- 
sides a half-day’s journey from here. What errand 
can he have in these parts?” 

“Oh, I am afraid to think!” moaned Gunlaug. 
“Gunstein the Brave rode into my father’s tun this 
morning, in full gala costume, and accompanied by 


36 


THE WHITE DAWN 


his carls. He had feathers in his little round cap, 
silver buckles on his shoes. When I saw him I ran 
into the woods. Brynjulf must have seen me and 
followed.” 

A vivid red burned in Oyvind’s cheeks, a flash 
of light leaped into his eyes, a white line etched itself 
around his mouth. 

“A-courting has he come, Gunlaug?” he cried, 
“Gunstein has ridden out to bid you fair?” 

She nodded. “I fear me you are right,” she said, 
“the stump, did you see it? And my cry, did you 
hear it?” 

“I saw the stump was turned,” he told her. “Then 
I ran, for I knew I should find you. Then I heard 
your cry and was beside all my senses. I thought 
a wild beast had attacked you. And he was little better 
than a beast of prey, the one I found. But, this with 
Gunstein, think you Thorold gives you to him?” 

“Yes,” she replied, weeping. “Gunstein is pre- 
cisely the man my father would choose for me. He 
is rich and influential, second only to my father here 
in Lesje, and my father’s friend. Oh, the day I have 
so feared is upon us! Even tho I be not given in 
wedlock to Gunstein, that beast will speak to my 
father of what he knows and of our try sting-place. 
When he finds that I have a lover the doors and 
windows will be locked, a maid will guard me by 
day and sleep in my apartment at night. It was be- 
cause father was devoid of all suspicion that I was 
allowed to come and go, according to my notion. 


N 


THB WHITE DAWN 


37 


Only the gods know if, after all, it has not been my 
undoing.’’ 

Oyvind looked at her in fierce inquiry. ‘‘Your 
words, Gunlaug,” he said, “they are strange, have 
they a hidden meaning?” 

She gave him no answer, only hid her burning 
face in her hands and wept. Whatever the meaning 
of her mystic words, he was not to learn it now, so 
he changed the subject. 

“Yonder lout, think you he’ll tell tales, Gun- 
laug?” he asked. 

She raised her tear-swollen face and looked at 
him. “Brynjulf stops at nothing,” she told him. 
“He’d lie or commit any other sin. He spied upon 
us last Candlemas; he said he has seen us together 
here. Now we are at his mercy. Neither you nor 
I can guess what tale he may prepare for my 
father.” 

They sat for a few moments in gloomy silence, 
then Oyvind said : 

“If what we fear is true, then we’ll not be able 
to meet here again. We must think of some plan 
to meet elsewhere. Some signal to use. We must, 
if possible, frustrate Gunstein’s plans. You are mine, 
Gunlaug, in word and deed. No other man has any 
right to call you wife. As long as I live you have 
no right to any other man. You see that, dearest, 
don’t you?” 

“Never shall I wish to be wife to another man, 
with you living or dead!” she sobbed. “But how 


38 


THB WHITE DAWN 


can I help myself, I have been brought up in the be- 
lief that I must obey my father. Besides, you can 
not take me, dearest. No priest would dare to join 
us in wedlock, for no bans could be pronounced. My 
father would stop that at the very first attempt. I 
have dreamt of going away with you, into a strange 
land, across the mountains to Svealand. But what 
would become of us there? You would be taken to 
thrall, at any rate you know what position I would 
be compelled to take. No, my Oyvind, there’s noth- 
ing left for me but to marry Gunstein the Brave, or 
death !” 

“And why not death?” he asked with flashing 
eyes. “Would you not prefer death with me to the 
disgrace of being another man’s wife? You know 
that would be sacrilege, your marrying any man 
but me. Your father has no right to give a woman 
who, in the sight of the All-father and the White 
Christ, is my wife, to any other man. Why not end 
it all together?” 

She shuddered. He had mentioned the White 
Christ. Who knew but He was the supreme God 
after all? If so, she knew the fate of a self-murderer. 
Life was so sweet, her young blood ran so joyously 
in her veins, the tide of their lives ran so high now 
in the early part of the beautiful summer. If only 
they could meet now and then! 

“It will be impossible for us to meet,” he said, 
almost as if he gave voice to her thoughts. “While 
you are free I shall seek you if the path should lead 


THB WHITE DAWN 


39 


to the Christians’ Hell. Once you are wed, our meet- 
ings would make of you an unfaithful wife, than 
which earth holds no greater shame. I will not be 
party to that. It has an ugly name and a dire 
punishment among us Norsemen. 

“So before you become a wife you have two 
alternatives, either you end everything with me, or 
else you give me up to the goddess Hel. When you 
are wed I have no longer any right to the breath I 
draw, for no intentions have I of fulfilling my duties 
of a man, that of establishing a home and shoulder- 
ing my proper responsibilities in the world. My 
right to life expires on the day you are wed and 
not to me. It is my punishment for our sin.” 

“Don’t, don’t, Oyvind!” she sobbed, wiping the 
perspiration that had gathered in great drops on his 
forehead. “If our companionship has resulted in sin, 
lay the blame on me. The good fathers tell us that 
our first mother caused man to commit the first sin. 
Methinks woman has been a convenient creature 
upon whom to place the burden of man’s transgres- 
sions ever since. Therefore lay ours upon me ! Live ! 
Seek another mate and be happy ! I have known the 
full measure of earthborn happiness ; if I pay dearly, 
so let it be! Don’t let us dwell any longer with 
this sorry side of the question, let us rather make 
a plan by which we may meet, even after my father 
knows all. 

“We shall never be able to meet here, I know 
that, but Gunhild will help me. If then I have a 


40 


THB WHITE DAWN 


means of letting you know where to come, we could 
see each other, dearest/’ 

“What about the cliffs above Blackwater Tjern?” 
he asked. “They are just across the tun from your 
building and there are many crevices where we could 
hide from curious eyes. If only Gunhild will let 
you go.” 

“But how do I know when you are there, or how 
do you know when to find me there?” she asked in 
perplexity. 

“We’ll still use our stump,” he replied. “When 
you are out for a walk, choose the path past it, then 
drop something into its hollow top. I shall visit the 
place every evening. When I find something there, 
anything, I shall take it as a sign that you are at the 
cliffs and go there. A night-bird’s call shall lead 
you to me.” 


CHAPTER VI 


HE dreaded to meet her father. It was while 
she was mending the dress which had fared 
so badly at Brynjulfs hands that he entered 
her building. She read no undue sternness in his 
rugged face. Instead he seemed more tender than 
usual. 

“My little girl is fond of ranging the forest?’’ he 
asked, stroking her black hair. “It is very hard on 
the dress, too. The weavers and sewing girls will 
have things to say if you are not more careful, child. 
How did it happen?” he asked, examining the ugly 
tear which she, with clumsy fingers, was trying to 
heal. 

“It was on the mountain, father,” she replied with 
scarlet cheeks and downcast eyes, “the juniper 
caught.” 

Thorold laughed in his big, good-hearted rumble. 
“You are a woman now,” he said, pinching her 
round cheek, “and you must soon have done with all 
this running in the forest and climbing the moun- 
tains, like a rabbit. You must stay at home with 
your maids after this. You must learn to oversee 
the baking, the brewing, the spinning, the weaving, 
and the sewing. I am afraid I have been overindul- 




42 


THB WHITE DAWN 


gent, but never till this day did I realize that my 
little girl had grown into a woman. I think we must 
change our ways or it’ll be but a middling wife that 
goes from Thorold’s gaard to him who comes and 
bids him fair for his daughter. What think you of 
this, Gunlaug?” 

“Let it be many days before you give me in 
marriage, my father!” implored the girl, clinging to 
him. “I am so young, so inexperienced! I want 
no one but my father. Is there no longer any room 
for your daughter in the buildings surrounding your 
tun, that you now speak of marriage?” 

“There, there, child,” he chided gently, as with 
clumsy fingers he tried to dry her tears. “A maiden 
should not weep at the thought of a bridegroom 
riding into her father’s holdings. I am not in a 
hurry to give you in wedlock, but there is a season 
for giving in marriage as there is one for sowing, 
for reaping. Gunstein the Brave has this day sued 
for your hand. He is a good man, a wise man, and 
one well thought of in our country.” 

He stopped for some expression from her, but 
she said nothing. Only her deep, trembling sobs 
broke the stillness of the room. Then he went on: 

“I gave him my word, but I did not set the day. 
That I reserved for you. Since you are so glad in 
staying with your father we can push the date back, 
say one year, say five. But within that time it must 
happen. You are twenty now, five and twenty is a 
good age for a woman to wed.” 


THU WHITE DAWN 


43 


“Will he wait that long, my father?” she asked 
in wide-eyed surprise. 

“Thorold is not the man to ask him,” returned 
her father with dignity. “He will wait till you are 
ready, or I shall betrothe you to the first knave 
that rides into my tun and bids you fair.” 

“Oh, I am so glad, father!” cried Gunlaug, “you 
are so good and I am so glad I can stay with you!” 
Then Thorold, the lonely man, blessed her in his 
heart. 

That night Oyvind stopped short, filled with 
amazement. He had walked to the stump, seeking 
a token from Gunlaug, when he saw it turned. Ac- 
cording to its position she was in the grotto. Was 
it a hoax? Did some one play him a trick? Was 
she really there? 

At full speed he started for Ditmorpiggen. His 
cuckoo call received the customary reply. She was 
in the grotto! 

“How does it happen that I find you here?” he 
asked. “I have been from all sense today, roam- 
ing the woods like a wild animal. My poor aunt 
fears that I have fallen victim to the evil eye. Tell 
what has happened, dearest!” 

In a few words she told him. “I shall make it 
five years,” she concluded. “Gunstein will never wait 
that long, and then my father has said he'll give me 
to the first knave that bids me fair. You must come 
then, Oyvind! Then, if he will wait, well, five years 
are long. Gunstein is old, perhaps Freya will give 


44 


THB WHITE DAWN 


his fate into the hands of the Norn before then. Her 
shears are sharp. She can cut the span of a man’s 
life in a short time.” 

“The White Christ and His Holy Mother have 
helped us !” cried Oyvind fervently, ‘T asked their 
aid. If good befalls us we must give them the glory.” 

“I, too, have prayed to them,” admitted the girl, 
and to Freya as well. I never forget her. She helps 
unhappy lovers, Oyvind.’ 

“I, too,” he confessed, “I laid my white goat on 
the sacrificial rock behind my house. Perhaps, after 
all, it is Freya who has the skeins of our lives in her 
hands. Perhaps we should continue to ask her that 
she entwine them into a new and wonderful web for 
us. Like you, I shall pray to her and the White 
Christ and His Virgin Mother. Perhaps they are 
members of the same family.” 


CHAPTER VII 


FEW days later Gunstein rode into Thor- 
old’s tun. He came now to complete the 
arrangements scarcely begun on his first 
visit. He was accompanied by only two of his carls 
that time, Brynjulf and Egil, who were well received 
in the drenge-quarters. They were well served, too, 
for in the eyes of the serving-maids they were both 
well-favored carls. 

As before, Gunstein and Thorold exhausted every 
available topic of conversation before they touched 
the topic nearest to their hearts. Then the aged 
suitor cleared his throat : 

‘T take it for granted, friend Thorold, that you 
know my errand here today, and that you have kept 
your promise and have told Gunlaug the meaning 
of my coming.” 

“Ji'ist so,” replied Thorold, “it is so that I have 
done. The lass is willing and will soon arrive to 
give you her word. She is but now at the task of 
dressing, naturally desiring to appear well in your 
eyes, this her great day.” 

Gunstein knew this was but empty phraseology 
of good usage, but it pleased him. 

“Nay, now, that is quite unnecessary!” he cried, 



46 


THB WHITE DAWN 


“your daughter could be naught but fair were she 
clad in a leathern jerkin. But I am impatient to 
see the maiden. I wish to receive my wife and settle 
down at once to a quiet, domestic life, suited to my 
years. I want an early wedding.” 

Gunlaug entered, dressed in her best finery. Such 
was the rule among her kind. Only as a bride could 
she appear in costlier garments than on this day 
when she met her future husband to plight her troth. 
Scarcely less binding was this than the vow she 
would later, in the presence of her friends and kin- 
dred, pronounce before the priest. Though attired 
in her finest dress she was not a happy girl, this day, 
on the threshold of her bethrothal. Gunstein ob- 
served it. 

“By the great Odin, girl, you are not overjoyed 
in having been chosen by Tesje’s richest man!” he 
cried. 

Gunlaug said nothing. She stood with folded 
hands, looking at him. Gunstein became uneasy and 
fell to walking the floor. Somehow the situation 
failed to appeal to him. He was better fitted to lead 
a Viking raid or fighting the Scots than to court a 
maiden with such flashing eyes, such disdainful 
curves of crimson lips. He wished it well over. He 
had been foolish in not letting well enough alone 
and accepting her from her father. He had wanted 
his answer from her own lips, and here it was, the 
situation. 

Bah! She didn’t help him, either, the haughty 


THB WHITE DAWN 


47 


wench. She just stood there proud and cold, as a 
queen. By Thor’s hammer ! Was this any kind of 
a mate for him, facing old age? But the die was 
cast. Gunstein the Brave was not the man to be 
daunted by any obstacle. It was really better, how- 
ever, to have her that way; it was that kind of a 
woman he admired. He would be proud of a wife 
like that. But, anyway, why must she be so cold 
to him? How was he to get things started? His 
Ingegjerd, Frey a bless her! had never been difficult 
like that. With a mighty clearing of his throat he 
tried again: 

‘‘Your father has told you, that is, hm, that I 
came to see him, hm, he has said to you, hm, hm, 
that is, that I came to seek you — in other words, 
hm, hm, I came today to bid you fair, hm, hm. Yes, 
that’s it, hm, hm! For this I came today. To get 
my answer first-hand I came, hm, hm — tho that is 
not necessary, hm.” Still no reply from Gunlaug 
and he continued, after a little more aimless drifting 
up and down the floor: 

“I want to tell you, hm, hm; that is — I wish to 
say, hm, hm — I want to be married, that is, the 
wedding must occur soon. I have so little time, 
hm, hm, that I want you soon, hm, hm — I mean, 
I don’t want to wait very long. And, yes, hm, hm, 
you haven’t said, that is, you haven’t, hm, hm, told 
me whether you want to be married to me or not.” 

“I have learned to obey my father,” said Gunlaug, 
quietly. 


48 


THB WHITE DAWN 


“So, yes, so, yes,” returned Gunstein, pausing in 
his peregrination, mopping his face and bald pate 
while giving her a long, appraising look. A man 
could take something from a perfect specimen of 
womankind like Gunlaug. He must get ahead with 
the business on hand: 

“You are right,” he said affably, “she must be 
like that, the maiden I wed.” But there was no 
response from her. There it was, a deadlock again ! 
What should he try next? He was almost afraid of 
her. Wished she were not so tall. Then a bright 
idea entered his addled pate : 

“Perhaps we should sit,” he cried, “let us sit on 
this bench. I can talk better when I sit, and you 
needn’t stand.” — She shook her head, “I can well 
stand,” she assured him, “I am young.” 

He began wandering again, up and down the 
room. It was no kind of wife, this, to comfort him 
in the old age that was fast approaching. But she 
should change after the wedding. He would be 
master then. He’d show her! Another reason why 
he must have a speedy wedding! 

“Come and sit,” he mumbled, trying to take her 
hand. Then he fell back with greater fear than he 
ever felt in the long-boat. It was as if the point of 
an awl had projected itself from each of her eyes and 
bid fair to sting him. He groaned in his misery. 
Surely the wench could not be in league with the 
Christians’ Devil! Surely she could not possess the 
evil eye! 


THE WHITE DAWN 


49 


But he would not give up. He was noted for his 
power of overcoming difficulties. He would not let 
this proud maid overpower him. He would let her 
stand to her heart’s content, but he decided not to 
attempt much love-making. That were best left out 
till his star was in the ascendency. He could afford 
to wait. He chuckled within at the picture he con- 
jured up to soothe his wounded pride. But how was 
he to get on? In despair he wiped the perspiration 
from his heated face, on his vadmel sleeve. Then 
he tried again : 

‘Tt was the wedding,” he exploded. ‘T want the 
day seti I came to tell you that the wedding must 
be soon, on Midsummer Day.” 

On Midsummer Day! Only a little over two 
weeks, an unheard-of curtailment of time. There 
were three Sundays, to be sure, so there was a 
chance for the bans, but that was all. This gave her 
a sudden hope. Surely a man,- so impatient to be 
married, would not wait five years. The vivid color 
flowed back into her cheeks, the happy smile of 
youth curled her lips. 

Gunstein’s eyes were open to the changes in her. 
Things were not so bad as he had thought. Here 
was a little chance for love-making, perhaps. He 
should not have made that mistake, however. She 
froze up worse than before. By Thor’s hammer I 
He could not understand the present-day feminine 
antics anyway. His Ingegjerd had never been diffi- 
cult like that. Still he liked her that way, he con- 


50 


THB WHITE DAWN 


eluded. It would protect him against the aggres- 
sions from the younger men. He would flatter her. 
That would turn the trick. 

''You can't blame me for wanting the marriage 
at once, since I wed Lesje’s comeliest maiden," he 
wheedled with what he intended should be a com- 
pelling smile, but only succeeded as a hideous smirk. 
He essayed a clumsy pat at the girl's cheek and then 
precipitately receded. It was uncanny, this lightning- 
like glint in the grey-brown eyes. 

Then came her answer. "Midsummer, did you 
say? Yes, Midsummer five years hence! I have the 
privilege of placing the date any time within five 
years. I shall take the limit. On the last day of the 
next five years you may come again, Gunstein, then 
I shall be your bride of my own free will, but not a 
day sooner!" 

Gunstein stood as if spell-bound. He did not 
believe his own ears. Had he, Gunstein the Brave, 
really lived to see this day? He who next to Thor- 
old was the richest, the most influential man in Lesje? 
He'd see about it! 

"Five years!" he roared, "are you out of your 
senses, girl? I won't wait that long!" 

"I will," replied Gunlaug demurely. "I won’t 
wed you one day sooner, either, which is more to the 
point !" 

"Where is Thorold?" he bawled, "I have been 
tricked! I am an old man! Five years, forsooth! 
By Odin, I won't! If Thorold wants me to take 


THB WHITE DAWN 


51 


you he must give you to me when I say! I am not 
a lovesick youngling, ready for any compromise I I 
am a sensible man who knows that time is passing! 
I have been alone long enough! Now I want a com- 
panion for my declining years, and that soon! Do 
you hear, girl? I will not wait!” 

“You better see my father,” advised Gunlaug, 
with a curtsy as she left him. “He has given me five 
years, and he never breaks his word.” 

Outside, in the tun, she met her father. 

“He is anxious to see you, he who desires to be 
your maag,” she said. Then she ran to the back of 
the buildings and was soon hidden from view by the 
friendly fringe of young birches, skirting the forest. 


CHAPTER VIII 


HE crossed the path, leading to Ditmorpig' 
gen, cut thru the entanglement of bush and 
briar, over tumbling brooks that leaped joy- 
fully over rocks and felled trees, with its still pools 
where the tiny fish darted about, beneath its foam- 
flecked surface. She was not bound for the grotto. 
Oyvind would not be there. On she ran, breath- 
lessly, stumbling over the rocks and into unseen pits. 
She scratched her hands and face on the briars and 
tore her fine dress. 

How she prayed as she ran! Pantingly, inces- 
santly she prayed ! Prayed that Oyvind would be at 
home ! That Brynjulf had not heard of her father’s 
offer to give her to the first knave who bid her fair. 
What if Brynjulf should be that knave! 

The White Christ, His Holy Mother, must help 
her now. And, yes, Odin, Thor, Freya! They must 
all help her. Surely the combined effort of them all 
could do no greater thing than avert this dreadful 
catastrophe. She would throw herself into the tjern 
if that fearful thing should come to pass. The holy 
fathers threatened fearful things in such an event, 
but she would pray to the Holy Mother and Freya. 
They would understand, they would intercede. 



THB WHITE DAWN 


53 


If only Thora, her rosy-cheeked serving-maid, 
could keep Brynjulf interested so he wouldn’t follow 
her. She groaned as she recalled the scene in the 
grotto and felt as tho Brynjulf were at her very heels. 
Merciful Heavens ! It was enough to take her 
reason. 

She had often, as a child, been at Oyvind’s home. 
It was not very far ; already the forest was less dense, 
and she began to see the light in the clearing. She 
stood for a moment, among the new growth of trees 
that skirted the open, looking towards the homestead 
before her, with its modest living-house and out- 
buildings lying around the small tun. They were 
sheltered from the sharp north winds by high moun- 
tains, towering above them nearly to the skies. She 
walked along the edge of the opening, keeping well 
within the leafy covering of small trees. She hoped 
to catch a sign, telling her that Oyvind was at home. 
She passed nearly half of the circle, then she broke 
off, at a tangent, and went towards the mountain. 

Great, scattered rocks lay there till she, accus- 
tomed as she was to move in rough places, could 
scarcely proceed. She climbed a huge boulder from 
where she looked down on the tun where Oy- 
vind’s two carls were sharpening the scythes, pre- 
paratory to cutting grass in the clearing. The 
Northland is poor in produce, and there are many 
mouths to fill. Every part of it must be saved, in- 
cluding the tender twigs of the willow and birch, 
which were cut and tied in bundles. These were 


54 


THE WHITE DAWN 


dried and made fine fodder for the goats during the 
long winter. The men left for the clearing, farther 
down. Soon the aunt, too, left, followed by the maid, 
both with handscythes. They were prepared to cut 
the twigs of the new growth at the edge of the clearing. 

If Oyvind was at home she would soon see him 
now. She was not mistaken, for after a few mo- 
ments, harp under his arm, he emerged from the 
house and took the beaten path leading to the forest. 
Quickly she descended from her high perch and stole 
behind the boulder. Then she gave the penetrating 
whistle that she know would bring him to her. The 
next moment she was in his arms. 

“What does this mean?” he asked eagerly, “some- 
thing has happened!” 

“I think you can have me, Oyvind,” she panted. 
“I think Gunstein has refused to wait for me. If 
so, then you can ride and bid me fair. Father will 
then give me to the first knave that comes. You 
must be that knave, Oyvind.” 

He gave her a searching look. Was she sane? 
If so, miracles had surely come to pass I 

“It is the truth!” she declared. “But let us rest, 
this run has stolen my breath.” 

They seated themselves in the crisp, green heather, 
its purply pink little bells modestly unfolding their 
exquisite beauty ; but for once they were oblivious 
to the wonders of nature. They snuggled well into 
the crevice that held them from view, and she told 
her story. Then she concluded: 


THB WHITE DAWN 


55 


‘‘You must make haste and arrive at my father’s 
before Brynjulf hears of this and rides to bid him 
fair for me!” 

“Think you he will give you to Brynjulf? A 
common lout I A house-carl I” cried Oyvind in 
horror. 

“My father never breaks his word,” she said. 

A few moments later she hurried back over the 
delicate pattern of sunlight and shadow, spreading 
itself across her path. At the edge of the woods, 
behind the guest-hall, she seated hers.elf under the 
friendly branches of a spreading bush. Here she sat, 
observing life within the tun. The dress she wore 
had belonged to Thorold’s second wife, Thora, Thor- 
stein Galge’s daughter, who had worn it during the 
great moments of her life, and it had belonged to 
Thora’s mother before her. It would perhaps be 
worn by Gunlaug’s daughter after her. Now it was 
torn. Her hand was clumsy to mend, she must win 
Gunhild’s attention. She would mend the dress, and 
what was more, she’d tell her something about Gun- 
stein and Brynjulf. 


CHAPTER IX 


ER father came walking across the tun. He 
was bent and, for the first time, she observed 
that he looked old. He began walking for- 
ward and backward along the top of the cliff, above 
the tjern, his head bowed on his breast, his hands 
folded behind him, and his steps slow and unsteady. 
Something had happened. 

For a long time he walked, endlessly, up and 
down the level edge of the bluff, which fell in fan- 
tastic irregularity down to the sandy beach of the 
tjern. Blackwater Tjern was well named. Towering 
mountains surrounded it, except where, at one point 
on its eastern edge, lay a gap, as if, from the edge 
of a gigantic bowl, a piece had been broken. This 
gave the only access to the tjern except by climbing 
down the bristling crags. The sun was far in the 
heavens before it found its sullen waters and yet far 
from the western horizon when its last rays touched 
its surface. At night it lay there still and sullen, 
without a ripple, while the twinkling stars and the 
regal moon, sailing across the velvety sky of the 
northern heaven, mirrored themselves in its placid 
waters. 

A haunting legend threw a phantastic light on the 



THE WHITE DAWN 


57 


formation of the tjern. Gunlaug recalled it as she 
sat watching for Gunhild. Once it had been a beau- 
tiful meadow, the holdings of a man who held it in 
fief from his king, whom he had served well. As the 
successive generations passed, the owners, one after 
the other, added to its buildings, and at last a won- 
derful castle stood there. It had magnificent domes 
and steeples, great, outflanking wings, and a vast 
central building. Around it stood scores of lesser 
buildings for the retainers and servants, till the place 
could have housed not only all the king's men, but 
their families as well. 

The last owner had been a handsome black- 
haired, brown-eyed young man, big and strong. It 
was whispered that he was a natural brother of the 
king himself. His lady was small and very darkly 
complexioned. It was said he stole her from her 
father, in the land of the Franks, and from the man 
to whom she had plighted her troth. Men and wo- 
men were constantly coming and going along the 
wide high-road that led thru the gap in the eastern 
rim to the meadow, but no one knew whence they 
came nor whither they went. Some thought they be- 
longed to the court of the king himself. 

Great revelry was the order of the day. The 
sounds of their songs and their harps, their loud 
laughter and their ribald talk were carried to the tops 
of the cliffs where the bonde-folk, in a spirit of awe 
and dread, were wont to gather and listen. 

But in spite of the noise, the feasting, the dan- 


58 


THE WHITE DAWN 


cing, and the beautiful music, there was no happiness 
in the lives of the owner and his lady. With the 
possession of all his wealth he had become indolent. 
He was cowardly, too, and no longer had any taste 
for heroic deeds. The woman he had torn from the 
arms of those she loved, hated and despised him. 
This brought him such incessant grief that, to drown 
it, he dipped ever deeper into the horn and into all 
corrupting practices which destroy body and soul. 

One day the lover arrived at the castle. A hench- 
man immediately took the news to the owner. They 
were careful not to reveal their knowledge of his 
identity. So the stranger, disguised as a troubadour, 
was one night caught alone in the presence of his 
lady. The two people asserted their innocence of 
all wrong. To no purpose. The cruel master had 
planned their punishment in a manner worthy of him. 

Down in the lower dungeons they were immured, 
each in a tiny cell, with a small opening where they 
could face one another. Here they were left to wit- 
ness each other’s slow death from thirst and horror. 
But the punishment of the others was swift and sure. 
Scarcely had the last moan of the unhappy creatures 
ceased before the meadow, with all that was upon it, 
sank beneath the sullen waters, which then became 
known as Blackwater Tjern. 

According to the legend the tjern would one day 
return to its pristine aspect. That day would come 
when the lovers were suitably revenged. The land 
should then be handed over to a pair of unhappy 


THB WHITE DAWN 


59 


lovers, and their subsequent happiness should re- 
move from the place the last vestige of damnation. 

It was strange that this old story, which she had 
heard so many times, should recur to her now. Per- 
haps because she sat watching her father walking 
along the edge of those clifis. Suddenly he stopped 
and shaded his eyes against the level rays of the sun. 
Gunlaug shrunk a little closer under the overhang- 
ing boughs. It was Oyvind that her father saw, 
riding into the tun, followed by his two house-carls. 
In spite of his small following and the scrawny horse 
he bestrode she felt a thrill of pride in him. 

He was dressed in gala-costume. Like Gunstein 
he wore short vadmel breeches, fastened at the knees 
with silver buckles, grey leg-coverings, a short, 
round coat and a small hat with a feather. But here 
all similarity ceased. As Gunstein had represented 
ponderous, old age, so Oyvind represented agile, 
winsome youth. Even Thorold’s features relaxed 
as he stood there looking while the young man 
sprang from his horse and came towards him. 

Gunlaug saw her father meet the young man and 
take the hand he proffered. They were so far away 
she could not read the expression of their faces, but 
a low murmur of their voices reached her. She sat 
breathlessly looking at the two men. Her fate was 
in the balance. What would her father say? A 
short time ago, when she had spoken to Oyvind, it 
seemed such a simple thing, this, that he should ride 
out and bid her fair — and now! Now it seemed 


60 


THE WHITE DAWN 


the very essence of madness. How she wanted to 
pray! But to whom? If only something would 
happen to show her whence came her aid! 

Should she implore the aid of the White Christ, 
of Freya? Perhaps all the gods were in league to 
do good. That was reasonable. She would hold 
herself near to the White Christ, and to Freya as 
well, for a little longer. Then she would see. 

The two men talked for a while, then Thorold 
turned away as if he were unwilling to listen. Oy- 
vind held out a detaining hand, talking rapidly, his 
voice carrying across the tun, in a subdued roar. 
How she wished she could hear the words ! Thorold 
stood for a moment with open mouth and staring 
eyes as if he failed to believe his own senses. Then 
with a jerk he pulled himself together, turned to the 
tjern that lay beneath the clif¥, upon which they 
stood, and talked rapidly to Oyvind while he made 
a comprehensive gesture, indicating all the surface of 
the tjern. 

Gunlaug could not hear his words, but the mighty 
roar of his voice betokened great perturbation of 
spirit. Then he dropped his arms to his sides, looked 
for a moment fixedly at the young man who, erect, 
and proud, returned the look. Then Thorold walked 
back across the tun towards the hall. 


CHAPTER X 


UNLAUG wept in her agony. Gunstein had 
decided to wait, then, and all was lost. Again 
her hope came flooding back. Five years 
is a long time, much might happen in that number 
of years. Gunstein might die. He was so old. Then 
her father would be sure to give her to* Oyvind. She 
must arrange that. Now that the perennial bloom 
of hope again lived in her heart it was with some 
of her customary jauntiness that Gunlaug rose from 
her recumbent position, under the bush, and walked 
across the tun to her building. 

She sat in her little chamber till dusk. Then 
again all her worries assailed her. She asked herself 
a thousand questions which, as usual, remained un- 
answered. If only Gunhild would come ! Perhaps 
she knew what had become of Gunstein, what dis- 
closures Brynjulf had made, and what her father 
had said to Oyvind. She sat there trembling. She 
did not dare to face her father till she knew what 
he had heard about her, what they all had heard 
about her. 

At last Gunhild entered. Gunlaug at once knew 
something was amiss. 

“1 am glad you are back, child,” the girl said 



62 


THB WHITE DAWN 


kindly. ‘Xong and anxiously have we looked for 
you. Your father desires to have a talk with you.” 

“Tell me first, Gunhild, what has happened here, 
what my father has heard about me,” she begged 
piteously, “I dare not face him till I know.” 

Gunhild had decided not to tell her what had 
come to her knowledge, but Gunlaug’s attitude was 
so pitiful, her voice so entreating that she was unable 
to withstand the pleading. She knew the entire 
story, having pieced it together from fragments told 
her by Thora and Ylve. The conversation between 
Thorold and Oyvind she had heard from her position 
in the drenge-quarters. 


CHAPTER XI 



I HEN Thorold, in obedience to his daughter’s 
request, went to see Gunstein, he found him 
I furiously tearing up and down the guest-hall. 

“What is this your wench tells me?” he began 
angrily, mopping his heated face. “Shall I wait five 
years for her? You are making game of me, Thor- 
old, called the Strong! Have a care then, it is not 
I, Gunstein the Brave, who is ready to stand this 
kind of treatment from you or any other man!” 

“It beseems you ill to use such language in an- 
other man’s guest-hall,” returned Thorold haughtily. 
“My daughter I promised you, but it lies with the 
bride to name the day for the celebrating of the 
nuptials. Five years she desires, and five she shall 
have. I have given my word. But, understand, this 
is true. If she desires to follow you to the altar as 
soon as the bans can be published, I shall not say 
her nay.” 

And it remained at that, for Thorold was a man 
of his word. 

Gunstein left the hall, blustering and swearing by 
all the heathen gods, with a few more modern terms 
of cursing thrown in. His men had been royally 
entertained by the maids and were sorry to leave. 




64 


THU WHITB DAWN 


Brynjulf chuckled when he saw Gunstein’s flash- 
ing eyes and corrugated forehead. The courting had 
gone askew! Evidently Gunlaug had been diflicult. 
Here was a good chance for him to bring out his 
story. As long as the love-business went smoothly 
he had not dared to approach his master with the 
tale lest the old Viking, in full berserker rage, should 
cleave his head. Now he would likely hear him 
thru. Now he could tell his story. He approached 
Gunstein and respectfully doffed his cap : 

‘‘There is aught on my mind that you should 
know, master, but I have been a coward. Now I 
crave leave to speak. You may take my head, but it 
is for your benefit that I tell ” 

“Speak, knave!” thundered Gunstein. “But if I 
find the tale of too little worth for my time, by the 
hammier, I shall strip every inch of hide from your 
back !” 

Brynjulf turned pale, but said quietly: 

“You, master, shall be the judge of that. But 
be pleased to come away out of earshot from Egil. 
Very gladly would he hear what I have to say.” 

They were standing near the brewery, out of ear- 
shot of Egil, but not from that of Gunhild, when 
Brynjulf told his tale. 

“It is regarding Gunlaug ” he began. 

“What, you knave! You oaf !” thundered Gunstein 
with flaming eyes, hand on the sheath-knife at his hip. 

“I shall be brief,” mumbled Brynjulf, shrinking 
from the mad fury in his master’s eyes. “It happened 


THB WHITE DAWN 


65 


on the first day you rode over to bid the maiden 
fair. She ran into the woods when she saw you 
coming, and I, with a strong desire to serve my 
master well, followed. I found her in a cave that is 
hollowed out in the side of Ditmorpiggen. There 
she was in the arms of a lover.” 

“Speak you the truth?” shouted the other. “If 
not, look to your hide, for by Odin, I shall have you 
flayed alive!” 

“I speak the truth, master,” asserted Brynjulf, 
livid with fright. Then he told how he had followed 
Gunlaug to the grotto, that he had tried to take her 
out of her lover’s arms and had been beaten for his 
trouble. 

“Why did you not tell me this story sooner, you 
oaf?” snarled Gunstein. 

Brynjulf hung his head. “I thought, if she bore 
herself as a good and chaste maiden should, it were 
better such be forgotten,” replied he humbly, “but 
now that I understand she has annoyed you I feel 
it is time for me to speak.” 

“So, yes, so, yes !” mumbled Gunstein. Then he 
turned on his heel and walked back to where Thor- 
old sat in the guest-hall. 

“Good word, friend Thorold!” he said, holding 
out his hand. 

“Good word again,” returned Thorold, in sur- 
prise, taking the proffered hand. 

“I now have the key to the situation with your 
daughter,” Gunstein went on, sinking down on the 

3 


66 


THB WHITE DAWN 


bench beside Thorold. “It is not because she wants 
to stay with you that your lass has stipulated for 
time. She has a lover. On the very day I came to 
bid the maiden fair, one of my knaves followed her 
to the cave in the side of Ditmorpiggen. There he 
caught her in his embrace. With main force he took 
her away, tho he suffered various bruises and torn 
garments. He says he will take us, any time, to 
their lair.” 

Thorold’s face grew stern and pale. For not a 
second did he doubt the tale. Fool that he had been! 
He should have thought about this sooner! He re- 
membered Gunlaug’s torn dress, the scarlet cheeks 
and downcast eyes. He saw, for the first time, the 
meaning of her prolonged visits into the forest. 

“Nay, Gunstein,” he said after a pause, “never 
shall it be said of us Northmen, who should be an 
ornament to our land, that we disbelieve one an- 
other’s word. No proof is necessary. I see it all 
now. It is as if a cover had dropped from my eyes. 

“When I gave my word that she could have five 
years- at home I did not understand that she wanted 
to gallivant with a lover. I thought she desired to 
stay with her aged father, and my heart melted in my 
breast. But now, should you still desire to wed my 
daughter, that promise does no longer stand in your 
way, and you shall have her in three weeks. If you 
no longer desire to become her husband, then let me 
know, and I shall give her to the first knave that 
bids her fair.” 


THB WHITE DAWN 


67 


Gunstein stood for a moment in silence. Then 
he held out his hand. “My word is as good as 
yours/’ he said. “I still find myself drawn to the 
maiden. Now I must go back to my gaard and my 
men, the lazy oafs, who will dally the entire day 
thru, without supervision. Speak you to Gunlaug 
and tell her of the new arrangement. Soon I shall 
ride in here again.” 

It was after Gunstein with his men had ridden 
away that Thorold began walking on the cliffs above 
Blackwater Tjern. His heart lay heavy within him. 
Something that for years had warmed his desolate 
old heart had stiffened up and died. For the first 
time in his life he felt old and useless. 

His only daughter, but now a babe, whom he had 
held but little lower than the saints, spending hours 
in a lonely mountain-cave with a lover ! She, who he 
had held as sincere as she was beautiful, had lied to 
him! She had put her father, the staunch old man 
of honor, in a false position! Somehow he felt she 
had broken his heart. 

He had not asked of Gunstein who the man 
might be, did not even know that Gunstein could tell 
him. He did not care. At least he was not a man 
of honor, or else he would have come riding into her 
father’s tun and, as a man, bid him fair for her hand. 
A bondman had stolen her from him, a thrall! He 
groaned as he thought of the situation. They were 
so handsome many of these fellows, brought from 
distant corners, and they often demoralized the most 


68 


THE WHITE DAWN 


virtuous of women. Ah, yes, women who were well 
guarded at that! And he? What protection had he 
thrown around his innocent child? Absolutely none! 

In all the length and breadth of the land there 
was no woman so entirely left to her own devices as 
Gunlaug. He groaned as from keen, physical pain, 
while he walked up and down along the level top of 
the cliffs, his hands tightly clasped on his back, his 
chin resting on his breast. 

It was then that Oyvind, with his two carls, came 
riding into the tun. With cheeks as red as those of 
a blushing maiden Oyvind came up to where Thorold 
stood anl looked at him. With outstretched hand ha 
said : 

“Good day, Thorold the Strong, and thanks for 
when last we met.” 

Thorold returned the greeting. This, then, was 
the lover! He was not a bondman, not a thrall. A 
free-born free-carl, one who was in position to marry 
his daughter. Not that his worldly possessions 
would warrant him giving her to the skald, but, by 
all the ancient gods, what a pair they’d make! Be- 
ing a skald lifted him up to a position of eligibility 
without property, too. 

He could almost have found it in his heart to 
give him the maid. He no longer blamed Gunlaug 
for her choice. She had used her freedom well. 
But she was promised to Gunstein, and their decep- 
tion had dealt him a wound that rankled deep. Thor- 
old stiffened up into his customary, haughty attitude. 


THB WHITE DAWN 


69 


It required no second sight on the part of Oy- 
vind to see that he was an unwelcome suitor. Every 
law of hospitality was broken, and Thorold, after the 
first words of greeting had passed, was openly hostile. 
But even with everything spelling defeat, Oyvind 
had an opportunity for which he had often sighed in 
vain. As a man he would bid her father fair for 
Gunlaug’s hand, tho he knew full well that his high- 
flown dreams would never come true. 

“Give me fair word, Thorold,’’ he said, “I came 
to you as man to man. I love your daughter and I 
came to bid you fair for her hand. I am poor in all 
that goes to make earthly wealth, but give me hope 
and I shall hang my harp on the wall and hence in 
Viking-raid, or to the land of the Scots. I will join 
the men who, but now, are off to Holmgard. Give 
me your wish and tell me to be worthy of being your 
maag, the husband of Gunlaug.” 

While his words were humble there was no hu- 
mility in Oyvind’s attitude. His eyes were aflame, 
his head was held high. He might have been a 
king’s son as he stood there, proudly erect. Even 
Thorold, angry as he was, vowed in his heart that 
any man might have been proud to own him as a son 
or as a maag. 

But he had provoked Thorold’s anger. This 
pauper was the cause of his recent sorrow. Poor 
as he was, he had ridden into his tun, with his two 
puny carls, to bid him, the richest man in Lesje, fair 
for his only daughter. Such audacity had never been 


70 


THB WHITE DAWN 


heard in the valley, perhaps not in the whole land! 
It was then that Thorold pointed to the tjern: 

“There, my young buck, lies your patrimony ! 
Wait till you have such holdings as is meet for 
one who aspires to become the maag to Thorold. 
Wait till Blackwater Tjern returns to its pristine con- 
dition. If this happens before the end of three weeks 
I shall give you my daughter to wife ; if not, then she 
weds Gunstein. Such is my promise, and Thorold, 
son of Sigvat Skaldaspiller, does not break his word.” 

After Gunhild had finished the story they sat for 
a long while without words, Gunlaug’s sobs from 
time to time breaking the silence that lay around 
them. 

“There is no hope,” she whispered at last. “Noth- 
ing now but obedience to my father’s command, 
which means that I wed Gunstein. And, Gunhild, 
you who have been both sister and mother to me, 
you know my heart is breaking. Give me a chance 
to see Oyvind occasionally, I conjure you by all you 
hold sacred! I must see him or, I fear me, I die!” 

Gunhild, frightened by the heartbreak in the girl’s 
voice, promised to do her best. 


CHAPTER XII 


ROKEN and trembling, Gunlaug changed her 
fine dress for a brown one, made of wool. 
She dreaded to meet her father, now that he 
knew her secret, and it was with trembling limbs 
she dragged herself to the guest-hall. Here she 
found him, cold as the wintry blasts from the Arctic, 
hard as Dovrefjeld. 

‘T have heard of your disgrace,’’ he began, every 
word like stinging particles of ice driven with the 
stormwind. “Since you are not to be trusted I shall 
give you to a man who will look after you. You 
lied to me as a means of gaining time before your 
wedding. Now I consider that promise broken, not 
by me, but by you. Gunstein is still willing to take 
you, and the day for the nuptials is set at three weeks 
from tomorrow. See to it that everything is pro- 
perly done, so that I may give my daughter in mar- 
riage as it behooves a man in my station. On that 
day I wish to be proud of you. Today, we’ll not 
mention.” 

His voice broke. It seemed that the iron heart 
of the old Viking was breaking. The eyes which 
had not known tears since she had died, his second 
wife, Thora, Thorstein Galge’s daughter, sixteen 



72 


THB WHITE DAWN 


years before, now these eyes were about to drown 
in weeping. 

A week had passed. Preparations for the wed- 
ding were well under way. Several women had been 
added to the servant staf¥, and the work went mer- 
rily on — sewing, brewing, baking, and cleaning. 
For a week the festivities would continue, and it be- 
hooved Thorold to be prepared with food and drink 
in abundance. He must live up to the traditions of 
his race. 

There would be guests from far and near. From 
the length and breadth of Lesje, even from Vaage and 
Lorn. These places were far away, beyond the moun- 
tains, but Thorold was a man known over the entire 
Northland. He who was a son of Sigvat Skalda- 
spiller must make the occasion worthy of his fathers. 

In the brewery three women were engaged in 
setting the mead. At the head of this enterprise 
was Alfhild, daughter of Oystein Skule. None in 
Lesje was as capable as she. In all Lesje, some said 
in all Northland, none could compete with her when 
it came to setting a butt of mead or brewing one of 
ale. None could compete with her in baking the 
crisp flat-bread that always served such an important 
purpose in feeding a multitude, nor in making the 
sweet honey-cakes that went so well with the mead 
and the ale. It was always she who was called to 
help prepare the feast for the wedding or the funeral 
or the christening, alike, or when the good people 
met, ostensibly to celebrate the day of some saint. 


THB WHITE DAWN 


73 


but in reality to propitiate the old gods for their en- 
forced worship of Olafs White Christ. She lacked 
her customary sprightliness that day, but she eagerly 
listened to every scrap of gossip that passed between 
the maids. 

“Gunstein is fitting up his old guest-hall, making 
it fine like new,” said Thora, who from her superior 
acquaintance with Brynjulf could speak with author- 
ity. “And he is rebuilding the women’s building, 
making it fairly shine. The wonderful tapestries, the 
shawls, the silk, the gold ornaments, all are to be 
given to Gunlaug. And the silver plate and all the 
things Gunstein brought home from his Viking-raids 
are to be given her. She’ll live like a queen!” 

“Yes,” returned the other maid, with a side-glance 
at Alfhild, “and a wench barely twenty. Methinks 
Gunstein the Brave could have made a better choice. 
She can neither spin nor weave nor sew. She has 
none of the accomplishments valued in a housewife. 
But that is not all ; by day and by night she roams 
thru the forest, and those who understand such 
things will tell you that the forest-spirit has taken 
possession of her soul.” 

The two girls shook their heads and looked 
solemn. Being bewitched by the forest-spirit came 
next to being mountain-taken. Everybody crossed 
themselves and prayed to the White Christ when 
such things were mentioned. The new God seemed 
proper to address then, no one knew why. 

Alfhild sighed. Just a little past fifty, she still 


74 


THB WHITB DAWN 


looked youthful. Her hair, a dark auburn and softly 
abundant, was only a little touched with grey. Her 
complexion was fresh, her eyes bright and, tho she 
was of ample proportions, her step was light. Still 
Alfhild was good to look upon. 

When Gunstein’s cherished Ingegjerd died he had 
been broken-hearted and then he had spent much 
time at the gaard of Oystein Skule, where he found 
comfort in the kind ministrations of his daughter. 
The neighbors had already begun to tell each other 
that a pair would be made of Gunstein and Alfhild, 
when he suddenly discontinued his visits. 

At first Alfhild was disconsolate, but she observed 
that his heart had not been captured elsewhere, and 
her grief gradually subsided. Then when she sat in 
the church and heard the bans pronounced for Gun- 
stein and Gunlaug the old sting returned. She walked 
home and shed scalding tears in the face of her own 
loneliness. 

Alfhild was not the only one to grieve that day. 
Oyvind, too, heard the bans. He was seated in his 
accustomed seat on the men’s side, when Father 
Anselmo read, for the first time, the bans announ- 
cing the marriage of Gunstein the Brave and Gunlaug, 
daughter of Thorold the Strong, son of Sigvat 
Skaldaspiller. He listened to the demand that those 
who knew any reason why the two should not wed 
must now speak, or forever hold their peace, and he 
felt like a coward ! His limbs trembled and his face 
had the hue of death. 


THB WHITE DAWN 


7S 


Had he done according to the promptings of his 
conscience he would have risen to his feet and de- 
clared that Thorold was giving in marriage a wo- 
man who, according to the God of Righteousness, 
belonged to another man. That this marriage would 
be a sacrilege. He sat saying nothing, stolidly 
listening in silence as those who knew not what he 
was in position to say, and he felt that, in the end, 
it would be his bane. 

All that afternoon, till far into the night, he wan- 
dered in the woods, aimlessly, fruitlessly. Anger 
and a sort of uncanny fear stormed within him for 
mastery. He must see Gimlaug. He must see her 
and talk things over with her, or he feared his guilty 
conscience would kill him. 

Like a pale wraith of her former self Gunlaug 
walked among her women, whose hearts were heavy 
for her. It Was not difficult to see that her sun of 
happiness had set. The sparkle of her eyes was 
gone, and in its stead smouldered a flame of grief 
and fear unnamable. Her merry song and bubbling 
laughter were of the past. Gunhild, who watched 
her by day and slept in her apartment by night, knew 
well that scarcely enough food passed her lips to 
keep her alive and that, at night, sleep forsook her 
couch. 

And Gunlaug never wept, never complained. She 
never voiced the despair that consumed her, the de- 
spair that was terribly written in her face. Where 
would it end? In suicide? In insanity? Gunhild 


76 


THB WHITE DAWN 


crossed herself and prayed to all the gods, old and 
new, with a sprinkling from the priest’s calendar. 

If she only dared ask Gimlaug what it was, this 
dreadful thing that sapped her very life. Something 
whispered to her that all was not well with the girl. 
She had done her an everlasting injury, she felt it. 
Why had she not thrown around her a protecting 
influence? Why had she allowed her to roam the 
forests, woods, and mountains, all alone? 

Gunlaug had always been so highstrung, so im- 
pulsive. She had always been indulged, always fol- 
lowed her own inclinations. She had never learned 
to question her rights of giving way to her whimis, 
never learned to discipline herself. Gunhild groaned 
in bitter self-denunciation as she dwelt on her own 
thoughtlessness. Criminal negligence of a mother- 
less child, was the verdict she brought against her- 
self. 

Gunlaug did not analyze the trouble that had 
fallen upon her. She just lived under it as best she 
could. She dreaded the night, for then she was un- 
able to sleep, and the thought of her youth and free- 
dom that were passing benumbed her with its bitter- 
ness. And the shameful use she had made of her 
beautiful youth ! She saw it all in its true light now 
that it was too late. If she could only see Oyvind! 
Perhaps he could comfort her. 

One night, about midnight, she heard the sound 
of a cuckoo, first faintly as if the bird was far away, 
then nearer. It was Oyvind, who must have become 


THE WHITE DAWM 


77 


tired of vainly waiting for his signal in the stump. 
But how was she to go to him? She shuddered as 
she thought of Gunhild’s bad hour if Thorold dis- 
covered that she had betrayed him. Thorold, for 
Gunlaug’s sake, and the honor of his future maag, 
had promised Gunstein that she and Oyvind should 
never meet. Still she meant to see him.’ 

She was no man’s wife ! She was free ! She 
would go to him now that he had come. Noiselessly 
she groped around for her dress. With shoes in 
hand she approached the window, when a faint stir 
at her elbow frightened her. It was Gunhild. 

“Go, child!” she sobbed, “I shall take the risk. 
You are breaking your heart, perhaps it will help 
you to see him. In the meantime I shall pray to 
Freya, to the Holy Mother. They will understand 
and pity two suffering women.” 


CHAPTER XIII 


UNEAUG experienced no difficulty in gain- 
ing the edge of the tun. Here she stopped 
to put on her shoes, listening the while for 
the repetition of the call. It sounded again from be- 
neath her. It was as if the bird were sitting in a 
bush, growing halfways down the cliff. She made 
a faint reply and began carefully to work herself 
downward. At last she stood on a wide ledge half- 
way down. Here she stopped with the queer feeling 
one has in the presence of some unseen, living 
object. 

A pair of arms were thrown about her, and she 
almost betrayed herself by a cry. 

A warm cheek was laid against her face. It was 
Oyvind. 

“At last I have you again, dearest, dearest,” he 
whispered. “I have been thru the tortures of the 
damned since I sat in church and listened to the bans 
for you and Gunstein. How I have continued to live 
I can not tell. It seems that dreadful hands are 
dragging me down to an eternal abyss, such as 
Father Anselmo describes as the Christians’ Hell. I 
can not live, Gunlaug, if they give you in wedlock 
to another man. It is against all laws, human and 



THE WHITE DAWN 


79 


Divine, that they should do that. You are mine by 
all tokens, you know that, dearest.” 

''I know it,” she wept. “But I must obey, I can 
do nothing less. Besides, there is nothing that we 
can do, no place where we can go and live a chaste 
life as husband and wife. It was wrong, all wrong, 
Oyvind, that we sought to be together. We knew 
that for us no wedding-bells could ever ring, that 
none of God’s anointed servants could ever bless our 
union and, without that blessing, the union we in 
our arrogance established is a sin. But it was all 
my fault, dearest. You begged me to give up the 
plan of meeting in secret. You begged me to let 
you go, when I would keep you in the grotto. Upon 
me let the punishment fall, let me atone ” 

“Hush, Gunlaug, don’t speak so,” he admonished. 
“The fault is mine, and for what is illy done I am 
prepared to suffer. I shall give myself up to thei 
goddess Hel, I shall enter in among the shades. I 
had dreamed that I should be vouchsafed the honor 
of dying on the battle-field and that, in triumph, the 
Valkyries would carry me to Valhalla, there to feast 
forever among heroes, slain in battle, but the dream 
is gone. Hel will receive me in her gloomy abode, 
for I must hence. It is not meet that an honorable 
matron should ever come face to face with two men 
that, by right, might call her wife. That time comes 
when you are wed to Gunstein. Do not weep, dear- 
est. Did you not know it would be like that?” 

“Oh, I don’t know, Oyvind. I didn’t know any- 


80 


THE WHITE DAWN 


thing, didn’t think anything except of the fleeting 
moment. I thought only of myself, of the happiness 
I found in your companionship, in our great love, 
which I determined was mine by the grace of Freya 
and the Holy Mother. Alas, I see now they must have 
hidden their faces and wept at my waywardness.” 

“But, dearest,” he whispered gently, “has it not 
occurred to you that Hel will receive us both? Her 
gloomy region of shades would become a paradise 
to me if you were there. Perhaps, too, since we do 
not die in our beds, the Valkyries may carry us to 
the feast in Valhalla. Let us hence, Gunlaug. Let 
us die together.” 

“Don’t say such things, Oyvind,” she moaned, 
shuddering. “Father Anselmo told me, in confes- 
sion, not to add self-destruction to my other sins. 
Then he gave me absolution. But for the sin of 
self-destruction there is no absolution, no forgive- 
ness, except, perhaps, thru ages of suffering in Pur- 
gatory. Oh, Oyvind! It is not the gloomy region 
of Hel that would receive us, but the eternal flames 
of the Christians’ Hell. Oh, Oyvind, I fear the 
Christians’ Hell, I fear their Devil, their eternal 
punishment.” 

Oyvind sighed. “These are dreadful times in which 
we live,” he returned. “Fearful are the upheavals 
we have seen, fearful is the Christians’ Devil and 
their Hell. But neither their Cod nor their Devil 
is as potent as the priests would have us believe, else 
why have they not more fear themselves?” 


THB WHITE DAWN 


81 


‘‘Don’t talk like that!” she chided him. “It 
sounds as tho you don’t believe in the holiness of the 
priests. Father Alselmo gave me absolution for my 
sins. I want to believe that he has the power to 
do so. With his help and that of the Holy Mother 
and Freya I mean to set right, as far as in me lies, 
that which I have done amiss. I promised the good 
priest that I would quietly wed the man my father 
has chosen for me and make him a dutiful wife. 
I also promised to observe every penance he laid 
upon me. 

“Gunstein has forgiven that which he knows about 
us, and he has promised my father that he’ll never 
point the finger of scorn at me for my frailty or its 
possible outcome. I think, tho, that my life will be 
cut mercifully short, Oyvind. Women of my fiery 
nature die easily from a broken heart. Then, when 
we are dead, we shall belong together, not in the 
gloomy abode below the earth, given over to Hel, 
but in the radiant Heaven that belongs to the Chris- 
tians. Here we shall live in an exalted relation so 
pure, so fine as not to be conceived below. Live, 
dearest. Try to see with the eyes given us thru the 
new religion, and live to make things right! You 
can not straighten them out by jumping away from 
everything into the tjern.” 

“You see things so differently from my way,” he 
said, “and I am glad of it, for it helps you to be 
happy. As for me, there is only one step that I can 
take. I have irrevocably decided to take it, so let us 


82 


THB WHITE DAWN 


not dwell any longer on the subject. We have so 
little time together. Shall I see you again, dearest, 
or must I wait till the cold hand of death has trans- 
formed our palpitating young beings into spirits 
which, according to the priest, have neither warmth 
nor substance? Shall I see you again in the flesh?” 

“I shall see you again,” she whispered, “if not 
sooner, then the evening before I become the wife 
to Gunstein.” 


CHAPTER XIV 


NLY one day remained before the wedding. 
Guests had already begun to gather. The 
feasting had already begun. The poorer 
people, who had come long ways on foot, were being 
served with bread and ale in the tun, while those 
from the higher strata of life, who had come in their 
own vehicles or on horseback, were regaled in the 
guest-hall with mead and honey-cakes. The tun pre- 
sented a lively scene. Guests, in gala costumes, 
strutted about, horses with curving necks and steam- 
ing bodies, pawed impatiently, grooms hurried about, 
the smiling serving-women and waiting-maids were 
everywhere present. There was a riot of sound, too. 
There were laughter and loud conversation, barking 
of dogs and from various groups, ranged along the 
stone-wall, enclosing the tun, came the sounds of 
harps and of singing. 

In the women’s building sat the sewing girls, 
putting the last touches to the garments they had 
fashioned for their mistress. There were things 
made from vadmel and from linen, cloaks, dresses, 
skirts. There were blankets, table-cloths, towels, and 
sheets, there were hangings for walls, doors, and 
windows. 




84 


THB WHITE DAWN 


The weavers had already escaped into the tun and 
were enjoying the excitement that prevailed among 
the assorted humanity which had poured into Thor- 
old’s gaard. They would have a long holiday, no 
more cloth was required for a long time, and they 
were out while the others were impatiently putting 
away the finished work. The morrow would be a 
great day, the day of the wedding ! 

The hour before sunset arrived. It was then, as 
behooved a good daughter, that Gunlaug must go 
to her father and thank him for all the kindness she 
had received, all the happiness she had enjoyed in 
her old home. This was her last day, as a child, in 
her father’s house. When she next came she would 
be a wife, one who had started housekeeping on 
her own account, one who had begun an independent 
existence, as far as her father was concerned. 

Tears rolled down her cheeks and her voice was 
choked by sobs as she stammered forth the words 
such as the occasion required. Thorold was deeply 
touched. With sorrow he had observed that his 
daughter had been unhappy. He would actually 
have welcomed an opportunity of breaking with 
Gunstein, but that was a thing unheard of in the 
North. The wedding must take place! 

His words gave no clue to his thoughts, as with 
studied formality he assured Gunlaug that she had 
always been an exemplary daughter and ended the 
ceremony by exhorting her to be a good wife to 
Gunistein. 


THH WHITE DAWN 


85 


The interview chilled Gunlaug. She would have 
given everything she possessed for the privilege of 
creeping into his arms and, as when she was a small 
child, weep out all the horror and heartbreak that 
were consuming her. But the studied formality 
drove her into herself. She seemed to be struggling 
thru a prolonged, cumbersome dream. 

From her father’s house she, with her maids, went 
on her round to the reception-hall. Here everything 
was spick and span. The floor and wooden benches, 
stiffly set along the walls, were as white as sand and 
water could make them. The floor of the raised 
platform, reserved for the bridal party, was covered 
with skins of the goat and the sheep, carefully 
tanned. On the chairs and benches were spread the 
pelts of wild animals that had been slain by the 
arrow and the spear, hurled from Thorold’s mighty 
arm. These, too, were tanned, soft as silk. Nothing 
was too fine or too good for the woman of the 
North on her ‘‘honor day,” which was proper. 

The huge fire-places at the ends of the hall were 
filled with great armfuls of evergreens, adding their 
pungent odor to the atmosphere and another festive 
touch to the appointment. Upon the walls hung 
tapestries and various weapons, brought by Thorold 
from his Viking-raids. There were scraps of Orien- 
tal rugs, too, and a long strip of cloth, embroidered 
in coarse, woolen threads, depicting the struggle of 
the Norsemen. First it showed them after their 
early advent into the North, struggling against their 


86 


THB WHITE DAWN 


natural enemies, the J(2ituls. The second showed 
them fighting their supematnral enemies, the Frost- 
giants. The last showed them in their long-boats, 
invading an enemy country. 

There were also weapons, such as were used in 
the North, huge axes, sheath-knives and spears of all 
sizes. There was one spear among them of which 
Thorold was especially proud, a feathered spear, not 
very long, but gold-handled. It had been the pos- 
session of his mother’s grandfather, Harald Haar- 
fagre, the first man who became sole ruler over the 
Norsemen. 

There were shields of all descriptions, from the 
tiny, ox-hide buckler to the great body-shield, calcu- 
lated as protection for the entire person. These were 
mostly brought into the North as trophies. The 
same was true of the armor. There were helmets 
and breast-plates, there were head-coverings which 
Thorold had worn during his raid, surmounted by 
head and wings of the eagle. Not a man in the 
whole length and breadth of the land could show a 
collection like Thorold’s, and today they shone in 
their pristine lustre from their recent polish. 

The way from there led to the guest-hall, ob- 
liquely across the tun. Two tables running along 
the entire length of the room had been covered with 
spotless linen and were being set. The girls were 
bringing out great trenchers of bread and cakes, 
dried goats’ flesh and cured pork, things that would 
take no hurt from being left on the table over night. 


THE WHITE DAWN 


87 


The floor, scrubbed to snowy whiteness, was 
strewn with white sand laid out in phantastic pat- 
terns ; the benches, set close to the tables on both 
sides, were uncovered, but here, too, the “high-seat” 
and the chairs, set off for the bride and groom, with 
their followings, were covered with fine, tanned 
skins of wild animals. 

The larder, built on sturdy piles, driven into the 
ground, stood a little back of the guest-hall. Here 
were great stacks of flat-bread, reaching from the 
floor to the ceiling, many carcasses of freshly killed 
animals, slabs of dried meat, butts of ale and mead 
and huge barrels of salted fish. Evidently there was 
no danger that Thorold’s guests would suffer, even 
tho the wedding should take a month instead of only 
a week. 

From the brewery butts of mead and ale were 
being rolled to the larder, and the attendants were 
applying the finishing touches that should emphasize 
the holiday aspect even here. The same thing was 
true of the bakery. Everything here was scoured to 
dazzling whiteness. The last load of baked stuff 
had been taken to the larder, and the great stone- 
oven stood open to be aired. Benches and tables 
were ranged along the walls, the floor was scrubbed 
and sand-strewn. In a group by themselves stood 
the maids, whispering and tittering. Many were the 
handsome carls who had ridden into the tun, a week 
was to be given over to joy and amusement, and a 
wedding was always filled with endless possibilities. 


88 


THB WHITE DAWN 


In the huge kitchen the women were perspiring 
over the preparation of roasts, while stews were al- 
ready bubbling in the iron caldrons. They would be 
ready for the dinner on the morrow. 

In the paddock, near the gate, their coats and 
hoofs polished till they shone, stood the horses that 
were a part of Gunlaug’s dowry. A little farther 
down, as if jealous of too much observation, stood 
the little white mare with her colt, also a part of the 
bride’s portion and Gunlaug’s pet. Besides these 
there were cattle and sheep and goats. Thorold was 
giving his daughter in a manner that behooved his 
kind. 

As in a new light Gunlaug saw the loneliness that 
would come to her father with her going away. She 
had not been much company to the silent man, but 
she understood now that her comings and her go- 
ings, her happy companions, as they filled the tun 
with their laughter and song, had meant much to 
him. Now he would feel all this as a sudden, direct 
loss. How she wished she had been a better 
daughter to him, that she had trusted to him more 
fully ! Perhaps he could have saved her from her- 
self, from the curse of her false philosophy ! 

In the tun the stev-singers were vying with one 
another in improvizing ballads. These were in the 
form of a text, sung first by one, then by another. 
Usually one was a man’s, the other a woman’s part. 
There were present a number of skalds, too, some 
known over the whole Northland. 


THE WHITE DAWN 


89 


Standing together with their harps under arm 
stood Attar Svarte and Sigvat Skald. Attar Svarte 
had come with a Viking-crew from Frankland, and 
for some time he took service with Olaf. Of late he 
was yielding to his desire to follow the king’s road 
to the uttermost valleys of the land. 

With outstretched hand, Thorold approached the 
musicians and led them into the guest-hall. 

“How fares it at Nidaros?” he asked while his 
guests were being served. “And our Olaf, is he as 
harsh on the old gods as when last I saw him, which 
was in the winter?” 

Attar Svarte shrugged. “It is not easy to know 
what he wills at all times,” he replied, taking a 
huge bite of cold venison. “Ill satisfied is he very 
often.” 

“They’re all loyal to the White Christ up along 
the coast, then, is it so, friend?” asked Thorold. 

Attar laughed and looked around him. “If these 
walls have not ears I will tell you about Sigurd 
Thoreson,” he said. “Sigurd accepted Christianity, 
but continued the old way with the feasts. From far 
and near they flocked to his hall. Then Asbj^rn 
came to lay death-hand on Sigurd. With his great 
ax he struck the blow. The stroke took Sigurd in 
the neck so his head fell off. It rolled before the 
king on the table-cloth, which became soiled. Then 
Olaf was angry. Spjalg Erlingson tried to defend 
Asbjjzirn, but Olaf said : 

“ Tt is one matter of death to kill a man at 


90 


THE WHITE DAWN 


Easter-tide and another matter of death to kill a 
man in the king’s presence. You have made of my 
feet an executioner’s block! It is illy done!’ 

“ 'It is illy done as it displeases thee,’ returned 
Spjalg, 'otherwise it is excellently done!’ 

"Then the king took many prisoners, some he 
put in irons, some he maimed, and Asbjjzirn, who 
did Olaf’s bidding, was beheaded.” 

Thorold sighed. "The old order is going fast. 
He is victorious in the Northland, the White Christ.” 

In the tun the two skalds met another of their 
number, Thormod Kolbrunarskald from Nidaros, 
where he was in service under Olaf. None was more 
welcome than Thormod, and the others greeted him 
warmly. 

"Is it possible that Olaf might come this day and 
help celebrate the 'honor-day’ of my daughter?” 
asked Thorold after the proper greetings were ex- 
changed. 

Thormod shook his head. 

"The king is too busy subduing the heathens,” 
he assured Thorold. "If you lay aside all attention 
to the old gods he’ll probably not come!” 

Thorold paled under the ruddy tan. Without 
more ado he went to his chief dreng. After a whis- 
pered consultation the boy went to find others of his 
kind. Together they went into the woods. There, 
in an inclosure, they found some goats and a young 
horse. Without a word they opened the gate and 
let them out. Mumbling fierce oaths and impreca- 


THB WHITE DAWN 


91 


tions over some one they swiftly returned to their 
quarters. 

“There should be, in these parts, a young skald, 
named Oyvind,” said Thormod Kolbrunarskald, toy- 
ing with the strings of his instrument, listening to 
the vibrating sounds, “I expected to see him here.” 

“It is a sad story,” returned Sigvat Skald. “He 
roams in the forest and seems afraid of people. It is 
feared that he is smitten with the evil eye, or — what 
is worse — that he has been mountain-taken.” 

Here the three musicians crossed themselves, but 
they prayed to Odin, to Freya. These were the old, 
trusted gods, but, in fear of losing life and limb, they 
were prompt in using the sign by which the Chris- 
tians were so well known. 


CHAPTER XV 


HE transparent gloom of the summer night 
was gathering, and the candles had been 
lighted in the women’s building. It was 
now the hour when Gunlaug was to inspect the fine 
linens her maids so faithfully had worked for her, 
the chests full of bridal finery and the woolen cloth. 
There were clothes for the every day use and for 
use on holidays and the Sabbath. Surely the supply 
would last her all her days. 

The first smile they had seen on her face for a 
long time was their reward. 

‘T have enough things to last me a hundred 
years !” she cried, “and such nice little stitches !” 

With trembling fingers Gunhild brought out the 
wedding gown and the accessories. It was made of 
crimson silk with full, short skirt, a black, embroi- 
dered bodice, sleeves and bosom of white linen, fine 
as the gossamer that floats on the still evening air. 
The crown was of Norse workmanship. It had 
been made of filigreed silver for Thorstein Galge’s 
daughter, who had been Thorold’s second wife. The 
gown was much older. On the morning the young 
girl would be arrayed in these trappings of fore- 
gone generations. 



THE WHITE DAWN 


93 


The fine, white underwear, the golden girdle, the 
glittering buckles, the tiny, pointed shoes, made from 
fine goat-skin, all were duly admired by the open- 
mouthed maids. But around Gunlaug’s heart there 
seemed to lay a cold, gripping hand. 

Back in her chamber she sank down in thought. 
This day she had always viewed thru a haze of ro- 
mance, the day when all her finery would be spread 
before her. The day before her “honor-day,” when 
all would be complete with the fairy-prince, amid 
music and singing, coming on the morrow, riding in 
splendor into her father’s tun! 

Alas for her! The fairy prince had come, but 
had been rudely thrust from his realm. Another — 
fat, bald, old enough to be her father, had been pro- 
jected between them. It were better not to dwell too 
long with that. She must obey her father, it was 
better than seeking her death in the tjern, better than 
submitting to the punishment of an eternal Hell-fire. 
She would see Oyvind that night, perhaps she could 
dissuade him from his wild desire to end his days in 
Blackwater Tjern. 


CHAPTER XVI 



[IDSUMMER day lingers long in the North. 
The musicians were loth to leave the con- 
genial company and the refreshments before 
the last rays of the sun had disappeared. Oyvind, 
this the last day of his life, had to wait long for 
Gunlaug. 

He sat sunken in bitter retrospection. His life 
had always been lonely. As a child he had been 
away from all children, and in his early youth he 
had been only a little less alone. He had never ex- 
perienced the tender care of a mother or known the 
guiding hand of a father. Plis only relative was his 
maternal aunt, an ascetic, disappointed woman, who 
had fed him well, according to her circumstances, 
who had kept him well dressed, but who had over- 
looked his warm, hungry heart. 

Even as a child he made friends with the wild 
things of nature. He loved the towering pines and 
the tiny plants at their feet. He understood the 
laughing brooks, the singing birds, and the sighing 
tree-tops. Even the great silence held something for 


him. But he yearned for love, for human com- 
panionship. It gave him a gentleness towards all 
helpless things and the wistfulness that lay in his big, 



THB WHITE DAWN 


95 


purple eyes, at which even the grown-ups wondered 
whenever they took time to observe him. 

The great day in his child-life was when he re- 
ceived his harp. It was the result of a painful ex- 
perience, too. His aunt, at that time, was much 
sought as a helper to prepare foods for the feasts. 
In this way Oyvind saw much festivity. The thing 
that attracted him, however, was not the food and 
drink, nor even the noise and fun. It was the music. 
Melodies of all kinds exerted a strong influence over 
him from his earliest childhood. It was a common 
thing to observe him, seated in a little corner near 
the musicians, weeping as if his little heart would 
burst while the music rolled from the strings. 

One winter night when he was about nine years 
old they were at a grand wedding. The harper had 
laid his instrument aside and had stepped to the 
table. Oyvind sat spell-bound, as with hypnotized 
eyes he watched the magic instrument from which 
had flowed the wonderful melodies. Almost without 
conscious volition he glided towards the harp, then, 
lightly as the zephyr touches the petals of a flower, 
he laid his fingers on the strings. 

They gave forth the very sound he had in mind, 
and almost in a frenzy he plucked on. The 
sounds that issued from the instrument were in per- 
fect harmony and he stood there, listening to the 
sweet tones, scarcely breathing, lest he lose a single 
vibration ! 

He received a rude awakening. His aunt had ob- 


96 


THE WHITE DAWN 


served him and was horrified. She grabbed him by 
the shoulder and not only jerked him out of his 
fairy-land of sweet sounds, but rushed him out from 
the hall. Out from the lights and sounds, that trans- 
formed his humdrum life into a brief taste of Para- 
dise, she rushed him into the drenge- quarter. Here 
she left him in dense darkness. 

“Pll teach you to meddle with a man’s harp!” 
she cried harshly, as she sent him thru the door and 
fastened it behind him. 

“Please take me back !” wept Oyvind, trying to 
open the door which she was busily barricading from 
the outside. “I shall be so good, so good ! I want 
to hear the harp ! And it is so cold here, so dark I 
I am afraid ! Please !” 

“Just you keep still!” shouted the aunt from the 
outside. “Is it not enough that I drag you with 
me wherever I go, to be in people’s way, without 
your meddling like that? I guess this will make you 
a good boy!” 

And so she went back to the light and warmth 
and music from which, without realizing her cruelty, 
she had ejected the little one with the wistful eyes 
and the lonely heart. 

He crept into the corner of the huge fire-place. 
Among the ashes a few embers were still alive and 
there were some chips in the corner of the room. 
Soon he sat crouching over a tiny flame that cheered 
him with its company. Then he sat up straight. 
Firm steps sounded on the snow outside. Had his 


THB WHITE DAWN 


97 


aunt changed her mind? She did that sometimes, 
his aunt. Was she now coming to take him back to 
the guest-hall? 

The door opened slowly. A head, under a bear- 
skin cap, was projected into the opening, and a pair 
of broad shoulders followed. A tall man it was who 
entered. Oyvind knew him. 

“Guthorm Halsen I” he cried, hopping down from 
where he sat and running towards the man. “Did 
you come to take me back?” 

Never was Oyvind so glad as when Guthorm 
Halsen noticed him. Many was the time when he 
had met Guthorm in the woods, and always he had 
told him such wonderful stories of elves and pixies, 
and of n^kken, that lives in the still pools. 

Guthorm laughed just such a big hearty laugh as 
one expects from a big man, as he took the little 
fellow in his arms. But around the edge of it was the 
sound of tears. He was so lonely, the little one, in 
the cold and darkness, but for the tiny gleam he had 
coaxed from the smouldering embers. And there 
was so much of light and joy and sound across the 
tun. Perhaps it was because Guthorm was so lonely 
in his home up there on the mountain-side, called 
Skallet, that he felt such deep sympathy for the little 
orphan; but never had he shown it so fully as now. 

“Yes, Oyvind, you’re coming back with me,” he 
said after a pause. “The old folks are all thru eat^ 
ing, and there are the most wonderful things for 
little boys. And when you’ve had all you can eat 

4 


98 


THB WHITE DAWN 


you’re going to have a nice little corner all to your- 
self, right up, close to the harper. You’ll be able to 
hear all the melodies.” 

Even now, as Oyvind sat alone in the gathering 
gloom of midsummer night so many years later, the 
warmth of that wonderful evening crept back into 
his heart, and he smiled as if it had been a pleasant 
dream or a vision from wonderland. 

A few days later his aunt handed him a harp. 
It had been left there by a pixie, she told him. The 
little boy had been too happy in his marvelous pos- 
session to care where it came from. But one day in 
spring, while he sat playing a little melody he had 
learned from a brook, he looked up and saw Guthorm 
standing before him. Like a flash it came to him 
that he was the giver. He jumped to his feet : 

“Thank you, Guthorm of Skallet, for giving me 
this fine harp !” he cried. 

Guthorm’s face clouded. “Did your aunt tell 
you?” he asked. 

“No, no!” stammered Oyvind in sudden alarm, 
“I only know you did.” 

Guthorm patted the curly head : “If it makes you 
happy, boy, you may as well know that I did, but 
this is between you and me. I did not want you to 
get yourself into trouble touching other people’s 
harps.” 

Then Oyvind played him a melody that the north 
wind had sung in the tree-tops. Something came 
into Guthorm’s eyes which he wiped away with his 


THE WHITE DAWN 


99 


big rough hand. Strange that a big man should 
have the same kind of a heart as a little boy, thought 
Oyvind. 

Before he walked away Guthorm took the child 
in his arms and gently stroked the yellow head that 
lay against his shoulder. Then, without a word, he 
set the little fellow down and walked away. Oyvind 
never spoke of the incident, but he never forgot the 
man’s friendliness. All thru his lonely childhood 
Guthorm’s kindness illuminated his path like a single 
candle in the night. Even now, as he sat there, 
staring into the gloomy tjern that so soon should 
close over his inanimate body, the memory of 
Guthorm’s goodness to him warmed his heart with 
its customary feeling of gladness. 

His harp had always been his dearest possession. 
It opened a new world for him among the fairy 
sisters of sound, light, and color. It blazed a trail 
for him straight thru to people’s hearts. No gath- 
ering, after that, was complete without Oyvind with 
his harp, and they called him Oyvind the Skald. 
How proudly his heart expanded whenever he heard 
himself so called ! Like others of his associates he 
loved the memory of his great name-sake, Oyvind 
the Skald, who over a generation before him had 
brought forth his wonderful melodies. 

As a child he had been thrilled at the story of the 
silver buttons, the gift of his admirers to the singer 
of sagas, and his heart had been filled with sympathy 
when he learned that his idol had been obliged to 


100 


THE WHITE DAWN 


barter his treasure for the bare necessities of life. 
Ah, and there were many a lout in those days who 
knew not the difference between melodies, living in 
affluence while his adored singer of songs was com- 
pelled to live in abject poverty ! But to be named 
Oyvind the Skald! It was an honor he had never 
imagined when as a boy Oyvind the Skald of histor>^ 
had been the hero of his waking thoughts and of 
his dreams. 

A great appeal lay in Oyvind’s music. Whoever 
heard it knew that his melodies had lived always, 
that they would continue to live in one form or an- 
other as long as there were skilled fingers to draw 
them forth. They had been a part of their existence, 
had been formed from the beginning of things, would 
exist till the dreadful day which, according to the 
priest, was to end all earthly things. 

Then he met Gunlaug. That is, he had always 
known her, but one night he played for the carls 
and maidens while they danced on the wold in the 
moonlight and she stood near, listening to his harp. 
He looked up and his eyes rested for a moment in 
hers. Again he bent over his instrument, but it was 
as a new being. He gave himself up to a new sen- 
sation, a strange dizziness which gave way to a 
happy exaltation. For the first time in his life he 
felt himself to be very important, and his harp sang 
a brand new song. It sang with such a wonderful 
swing that the young people crowded about in won- 
der, all but Gunlaug. She stood with folded hands. 


THB WHITE DAWN 


101 


with a new light in her eyes, listening. It was as if 
she heard and understood that which was meant 
for her alone. 

Again he looked up and met her eyes. It was 
while she was dancing past, and the look she gave 
him was so different from her ordinary laughing 
glances. It was serious, almost wistful. It was a 
part of the new melody, it explained all the soft 
wood-land sounds in early spring. Even now, his 
pulses quickened at the recollection. 

For two years he worshiped her in silence, 
scarcely daring to breathe her name. It was only on 
festive occasions he was able to feast his hungry 
eyes on her beauty. Sometimes, in passing, her dress 
or strands of her hair touched him, and he received 
it as a caress. Sometimes he was even able to hold 
her hand for a moment, in greeting. As a skald his 
position was sufficiently high so he could have led 
her in the dance, but he held off. The very thought 
of the intoxicating nearness of her, as a partner in 
the dance, nearly took his breath. He was going 
to be quite contented to worship her at a distance. 
She was to him almost as one of the Christians’ 
saints. He would do nothing to break the spell. 

Gradually a burning desire for an open expres- 
sion of his love took possession of him. He must 
tell her how wonderfully she was making up to him 
for his lonely childhood. He would tell her all she 
meant to him ; then he would never mention the sub- 
ject again. He would be satisfied. 


102 


THE WHITE DAWN 


Then came the second day in February with the 
Candlemas feast. With the pent-up power of his 
long-endured passion he drew her from the cold em- 
brace of her dance-partner into his own, the throb- 
bing, intoxicating arms of the lover. But the satiety 
he had fondly expected failed him. Every thought 
of the few ecstatic moments filled him with an un- 
controllable longing for her that amounted to a 
real pain. 

It almost overpowered him, at times, this intense 
desire for the time when they could meet, not with 
a stolen hand-shake, but heart to heart as they had 
stood that night within the inky shadow of the pine. 

Then came the meeting in the woods, the grotto, 
the weeks filled with the insane ecstasy they never 
attempted to name. They had lived in a realm of 
their own making, their heads above the clouds, cut 
off from all earth-binding forms and traditions. It 
was a realm within which there was no room for 
another human being, where they took no thought, 
where they asked no question of the morrow. 

Then their kingdom was invaded. Their fairy- 
land was turned into a vale of tears and blind de- 
spair. They whose heart-fibres seemed to be in- 
twined were rudely separated, a third party thrust 
between. Now came the thoughts, now came the 
question. 

And the answer to the question? Oyvind’s an- 
swer was — the tjern! He had only one means by 
which he could make Gunlaug an honest woman, so 


THU WHITB DAWN 


103 


the voice of his conscience whispered, his life. He 
would give that. He groaned in his anguish. It 
had been so hopeless from the first — she, the 
daughter of Thorold the Strong, son of Sigvat 
Skaldaspiller ! He had always known that her father 
would never permit the marriage to take place. Why 
had he not, then, been man enough to keep aloof from 
the girl? Why had he not had the sense to foresee 
this day? Then they would not now have been so 
endlessly unhappy, so endlessly afraid! 


CHAPTER XVI 


S HEN she came to him. There were no tears 
that night. Their grief was too deep for 
any expression as they stood in unending 
embrace, her hands folded behind his neck. 

“Live, Oyvind, live!” she implored. “The world 
is so big and no corner is so far away that a North- 
man has not found. There are honors to be won in 
the land of the Franks, in Gardarike, in the lands 
of the Engles and the Scots. A skald is welcome 
everywhere. Or, you needn’t leave the Northland. 
You can take service with Olaf. Thormod Kol- 
brunarskald is here, from Nidaros. He asked about 
you. Ylve said so, he has heard of your sagas and 
harp-music, even at the court of the king! Try, 
Oyvind ! Live !” 

Her entreaties fell on dull ears. 

“Don’t let us waste time on this useless talk, 
dearest!” he begged. “It is for you I die, for your 
honor and mine. Say no more, but promise me that 
you’ll try to be reconciled to this, that you’ll not 
allow this to rob you of your happiness. Promise 
me that you’ll try to extract from life such measures 
of joy as the gods have portioned out as your share. 
The cup of happiness will some day be held to your 


THB WHITE DAWN 


105 


lips ; but if you refuse to drink, it may pass you by 
forever. 

“Promise me that when you part from me to- 
night you’ll bid farewell to all that has been sad and 
unlovely in the past, and keep your heart open to 
receive that which shall compensate. If you’re un- 
willing to do this, then the injury I have done you 
is irreparable. I give my life in vain! Promise 
me that you’ll be brave and take the best life offers 
you, or I feel that I die with the curse of your woe 
and grief upon my heart I Promise me, dearest, that 
you will do as I ask!” 

With trembling lips she promised. There was 
little to say after that, little time, too. She was 
stumbling on towards the cliff she must climb in 
order to reach Gunhild, when her foot struck a 
sounding object. It was Oyvind’s harp — broken. 
With clumsy fingers she attempted to adjust the tom 
strings. Then, as if she realized the futility of further 
endeavor, she knelt for a moment, laying it down. 
Slowly, tenderly as one places a sleeping infant in a 
cradle, she laid it on the grass. 

Like one in an awful dream she climbed the cliff 
and crossed the tun to where her cousin stood wait- 
ing for her. They spoke no words, those two. They 
understood one another. 

And now, for a moment, we’ll return to Oyvind. 

The strange events that are herewith chronicled 
must be interpreted according to the reader’s own 
light. Had they been recorded in some legend or 


106 


THB WHITE DAWN 


saga of old for the wives to tell their little ones at 
eventide? Did they grow out of Oyvind’s mental 
aberration that followed when he fully saw himself 
in the light of other eyes, perhaps those of his 
Maker? Did they grow from his soul-sickness when 
he realized his transgression, and the consequent 
break in his spiritual armor making him an easy 
prey to the voice that whispered of the paths of 
least resistance? Is the story true? Strange things 
came to pass in the misty period nearly a thousand 
years back in time. Again, let us say that as the 
reader sees so will he judge. And so we must let 
the story go on. 


CHAPTER XVII 


S YVIND sat motionless for a few moments 
after Gunlaug’s form, silhouetted against the 
grey-blue sky, had disappeared. Then he let 
himself down, from cliff to cliff, till he stood on the 
sandy beach of the tjern. A boat lay drawn up on 
land. He would borrow that. It would surely float 
back to land after he should be done with it. 

His oars dipped noiselessly into the dark waters 
of the tjern. Over him twinkled a heaven full of 
stars, dimmed by the transparency of the midsummer 
night which was, after all, a mere twilight, delicately 
merging the evening with the dawn. In her regal 
beauty the full moon looked down upon him from 
the zenith, and the cool breeze from the snow-clad 
mountain tops fell as a soothing touch upon his 
fevered forehead. The spicy odors of the conifers 
were in his nostrils, and the noisy quiet of the night 
among the trees and mountains, closely encircling 
the tjern, lay upon him as the comforting hand of a 
comrade. A hoot-owl sat in a low bush near the 
margin of the water; a cuckoo’s call came from a 
small birch leading a precarious existence in a 
crevice high up on the rugged side of the cliff; a 
nightingale sat in a low bush whose leaves gracefully 


108 


THE WHITE DAWN 


hung over the tjern and let loose its wonderful runs 
and trills. What a world it was, after all ! He would 
not hurry. He would wait till the first rays of the 
day that gave Gunhild to another man should dye 
the distant top of Ditmorpiggen. 

But even this was but putting off the evil mo- 
ment. He shivered as he leaned back, letting the 
boat rest or move as it might list, while, as a con- 
demned criminal on his way to execution, he ob- 
served all the beauties about him with the heaviness 
of an eternal farewell tugging at his heart. 

With a mighty effort he cast it all from him. 
For a few blissful hours he would forget all else in 
the contemplation of the beauty around him, while 
he should enjoy the sweet odors of trees and flowers, 
the majesty of the primal forest and lofty mountains, 
the radiance of the moon. Oyvind the dreamer, the 
poet, the fanatic, the idealist, what could he do but 
love the transcendent beauty of his surroundings? 
What could he do but dread the cold and slime of 
the tjern? 

His thoughts gradually became chaotic with one 
idea clear and insistent. His sin had found him out. 
What had it done to him? The question was no 
longer. What had it done to Gunlaug? What had it 
done to society? It was. What had it done to him? 
Something whispered that it had unfitted him for life. 
Now he wanted to know why. Suddenly it came. It 
had weakened him, making him wish to die because 
that was the easier way ! Suppose he lived on ? What 


THU WHITE DAWK 




then? What derangement would he suf¥er from dur- 
ing the rest of his days? What power existed that 
would free him from the dreadful things he had 
learned to recognize in himself? Then he rubbed his 
eyes. Had he taken the fatal plunge after all? Was 
he now entering the realm of Hel? Gone were the 
tjern, the mountains, the night-noises! Gone the 
heavens with the moon and stars! He was gliding 
forward thru a narrow tunnel, looking towards a wide 
valley. The tunnel was so narrow he could touch the 
walls and the roof, but it was widening out on a sandy 
beach that separated its waters from the level wold 
and, surely, it was the same moon, the same stars 
above that gradually appeared before him ! 

The valley began at the point where the tunnel 
merged with the outside, stretching out mile-wide, 
into the hazy distance. On the wold, revealed by 
the moonlight, he saw herds of fat cattle, and several 
women among them. They saw him and came run- 
ning. He was still sitting in the boat when they ap- 
proached and tried to throw their fire-irons over him. 
He had not crossed into the land of Hel then, he 
had arrived among the under earthlings. Instantly he 
murmured a prayer and made the sign of the cross. 
It saved him from being mountain-taken and coming 
under the everlasting control of an elf-maid. For 
the iron fell into the water at his side. 

They were handsome women, and most of them 
were young. Their bodies were straight and tall, 
broad-shouldered and deep-bosomed, as they are apt 


no 


THE WHITE DAWN 


to be on women who fare much in the woodland. 
Their faces were waxy white, their eyes and hair 
coal-black. It was not their complexions, strange as 
that was to a Northman, that struck Oyvind — it 
was the heavy look of hopelessness that lay on their 
features. They were many and they were young, 
but not a smile lighted up their faces, not a snatch of 
song came to their Ups. They looked as if they 
knew not the meaning of either. As if they never 
had known the meaning, nay, more than that, as if, 
from the dawn of history, none of them had ever 
laughed, had ever sung. By the looks of their faces 
it was plainly to be seen that none of them ever 
expected to sing, to laugh, or to feel the tiniest sense 
of happiness. 

A vague thrill of terror struck his heart and he 
looked back for an avenue of escape. How he 
wished he had taken Gunlaug’s advice and tried to 
live. Behind him the mountain had closed. He was 
trapped, at the mercy of the underearthlings ! As 
his boat had moved forward the mountain had closed 
behind him. 

There was little motion among the underearth- 
Hngs. They stood stolidly looking at him. Then 
quickly, as a flock of birds taking sudden flight, they 
were gone! Where they went, he could not see, all 
he knew was his thankfulness that they were off, that 
it was the midnight hour, after which no underearth- 
ling dared remain under the stars. 

He was not alone, however, for on the shore 


THB WHITE DAWN 


111 


stood a small, grotesque figure beckoning to him. 
He was only about four feet tall, but his body, above 
the waist, was large as that of a full-grown man, 
while his limbs from the waist down were small and 
misshapen. He had a hunch on his back, and his 
arms were so long that his large fists almost touched 
the ground. 

The hunchback was evidently an earthling and 
spoke to Oyvind in his own vernacular. 

“You are wanted inside of the mountain,’^ he said, 
“for this Mokakala has opened the passage.’’ 

There was no other course open to the skald, so 
he followed the hunchback from the shore, across 
where the under earthlings had stood, gaping at him. 
The hunchback stopped at the mountain wall, rising 
vertically above them. He removed from a crevice 
a small rock, pressed a projection that appeared and 
stood back. A low, rumbling sound followed, a 
great, jagged rock shot out sideways, past them, 
leaving an opening that seemed to lead into the very 
heart of the mountain. Without a word the strange 
little man took Oyvind by the hand and led him 
along the passage. 

They had walked some distance when, beyond the 
mouth of this second tunnel, a strange landscape ap- 
peared. It was different from anything Oyvind had 
ever dreamed of, for there was not a tree, not 'a 
blade of grass, nor a bird nor the sign of any other 
animal. In his wildest fantasies, under a midsummer 
night’s moon, he had not pictured half its weirdness. 


112 


THU WHITE DAWN 


They stepped out of the tunnel into what ap- 
peared to be a basin several miles wide, and so long 
they could not see its farther end. Indeed it was 
a rocky cavern, so vast that the arched dome above 
might almost have been the heavens. The entire 
region was illuminated by myriads of lights, giving 
off a radiance that resembled diffused sunlight. The 
lights were like milk-white torches, flaming overhead 
and, obeying the law of perspective, becoming mere 
specks in the far distance. 

When they emerged from the tunnel the rock 
shot back and left not a scratch to mark the open- 
ing. Oyvind pinched himself to make sure he was 
awake. Under foot lay a deep layer of sand as far 
as the eye could reach, covering the rocks like a 
blanket. By way of ornamentation, beautifully col- 
ored rocks had been raised in rows, along the high- 
ways and before the buildings. 

In the distance was a group of houses, like a 
good-sized town. It was towards this they were 
going. They passed groups of underearthlings, the 
hunchback being ever on the watch, as if he were 
afraid that some harm might befall his companion. 
They passed a group of maidens, weaving an enor- 
mous, green carpet. One of them, her hand thrust 
in her bosom, rose and followed Oyvind and his 
companion. 

Her face was of that waxy whiteness common to 
underearthlings, but her lips were scarlet and her 
cheeks were faintly red. Her eyes were black and 


THE WHITE DAWN 


113 


lustrous, her hair hung in great, black coils down her 
back, her body was tall and slender, with deep chest 
and magnificently formed bosom. On the whole, she 
was the most beautiful woman Oyvind had ever seen. 

The other workers merely looked up with in- 
scrutable eyes and went on with their labor. Again 
he noted the strange sorrow that brooded over them, 
the stony despair written in every face. For a mo- 
ment Oyvind looked away from the girl, then with 
a gesture, quick as lightning, she raised her hand 
from her bosom. A fire-iron glinted in her hand. 
In a second it would have whizzed over his head, 
but the hunchback, who was continually on the watch, 
sprang forward and roared out a name: 

‘Xauna !” 

Again the girl’s hand traveled to her bosom. 
She drew it back empty, turned away and walked on, 
almost in the same direction Oyvind and his com- 
panion were taking. On they went again, after the 
momentary interruption, the hunchback ever on the 
watch. 

They passed many groups of people, always en- 
gaged in some form of occupation. One group were 
making cheese, another cutting up carcasses of 
newly killed cattle, and some were preparing and 
salting great butts of fish for curing. There were 
carpenters at work, masons, blacksmiths, and stone- 
cutters; all working in little groups, suggestive of 
specialized labor. 

As in the former groups of people, he again ob- 


114 


THB WHITE DAWN 


served the dull hopelessness suggested by the ex- 
pression of their faces and in their attitude. It 
seemed they were living because they had no choice 
in the matter, and without the slightest interest in the 
process. It was almost as if their bodies housed 
dreadful spirits which in some way lacked the prin- 
ciple which makes one really human. They seemed 
absolutely without feeling save for the heartbreak 
and sullen despair that lived in their eyes. 

He had seen wildly unhappy people, a man who 
in the sudden frenzy of a deep sorrow took his own 
life, a woman who gradually sank under a load of 
grief to her death. This was unlike either. He felt 
he was looking upon a people who were acquainted 
with sorrow too terrible for expression, too deep to 
vent in weeping, too all-absorbing to forget, even 
during the fleeting moment of a smile! It filled him 
with a dread he lacked words to define. 

Oyvind and the hunchback stopped before a 
white palace, standing within an enclosure, in the 
middle of the town. It was built of white marble 
and the high walls that surrounded it were built from 
hewn granite. Several gates, guarded by men in 
uniform, led to the grounds, which presented a flat 
terrain, covered, as was the rest of the surface, with 
deep layers of sand. In the front of the palace was 
a pond edged with white stones, and in its center 
played a fountain. Here and there bright-colored 
rocks and great slabs of agatized wood polished to 
mirror brightness were displayed. 


THB WHITB DAWN 


115 


The front of the palace presented a row of mas- 
sive pillars holding up a roof, extending over a 
terrace, leading to a wide veranda. From the 
veranda, massive doors opened into a wide ante- 
chamber. They had reached the first step to the 
terrace when the hunchback turned to Oyvind : 

“Stand here till I return,'' he said. “Let no one 
engage your attention, above all things don't let any 
of these hussies throw their fire-irons over you. If 
that should happen you would immediately become 
mountain-taken, and it was not for this that Mo- 
kakala opened the passage for an earthling." 

The hunchback disappeared behind a huge column, 
and Oyvind stood still, looking about him. He meant 
to be on his guard, for he knew the meaning of that 
dreadful condition known as being mountain-taken. 

There was Harek Kolbj^zirnsen. Oyvind knew 
him well. Many were the stories current about him. 
People spoke of him spending his days in the forest 
and mountains, searching for the elf-maiden who had 
thrown her fire-iron over him and so had full sway. 
It was whispered that she had changed the unfortu- 
nate man into a being that at times was so dreadful, 
so unhuman that its very name was wont to bring a 
pallor upon the cheeks of the strongest. He thought 
of it now with a nameless dread and crossed himself. 
Oyvind was far from accepting the new religion, but 
this was a case with which he felt the old gods were 
unable to cope, else why had they not protected 
Harek? 


116 


THE WHITE DAWN 


A sound behind him caused him to turn. He 
looked straight into Laima’s burning eyes, which, 
with her scarlet lips, her lithe, young body exerted a 
hypnotic influence over him from which he was un- 
able to withdraw. But for the movements of her 
bosom, which rose and fell with feverish frequency, 
she might have been a waxen figure. There was no 
expression on her face except that brooding despair 
which seemed much more pronounced in the women 
than in the men. She resembled a votary at some 
heathen shrine, ready to give her body to the flames 
in her zealous worship. 

This was what the hunchback had foreseen. He 
tried to take his eyes from her face, but she held 
him. Into her face leaped a sudden flame which 
spoke all that her lips refused to utter, wholly in- 
toxicating him. A mist came before his eyes and 
thru the mist the face of the elf-maiden became Gun- 
laug’s. He opened his arms to her, but she re- 
ceded, beckoning him to follow. 

It was Gunlaug who ran before him, therefore 
he followed. He had been mistaken after all. He 
was in the land of Hel ! She had thrown herself into 
the tjern and had found him. It was strange that the 
same passions should actuate him now, that he was 
a shade, as those with which he had been familiar 
during his earth-life ! His blood ran warm and 
swift as in his greatest moments on earth! 

These ideas were not clear in his brain. They lay 
behind his thoughts of Gunlaug, as a disordered fig- 


THU WHITE DAWN 


117 


ment of the ones that centered around the elf-maiden. 
She preceded him into a narrow chasm which led out 
of the broad valley, and in between perpendicular 
mountain walls, among which no light penetrated. 
Here in the mystic darkness she turned, gave him her 
hand and, with him following, she still sped on. 

On they ran, over sharp stones and across unseen 
crevices, where he would have stumbled had she not 
steadied him by the firm hold of her hand. It was 
so dark now that he could only see the nape of her 
neck where it rose from her dark dress, and her 
fluttering hand as hazy blurs on the curtain of dark- 
ness before them. 

Suddenly she turned with a low cry of mixed fear 
and triumph. The next moment he pressed her close 
to him, bending his head again and again, kissing 
her warm mouth. She struggled to free her right 
hand, which she plunged into her bosom. 

In another minute the fire-iron would whizz over 
his head, and for all time his peace of soul would be 
lost. For never is the mountain-taken to know any 
peace except during two hours under the full moon, 
when the elf-maiden, who has won him, can escape 
from the mountain and search him out. But Oyvind 
heeded not the danger. It was Gunlaug he held in 
his arms, it was her breath that was fanning his face. 
In another moment all would be over, for no gleam of 
enlightenment entered his soul. In another moment 
he would be where no human aid could reach him ! 

A strong hand shot out of the darkness. It 


118 


THB WHITE DAWN 


separated Oyvind and the girl. It was that of the 
hunchback. Oyvind came back to his senses with 
the first word the dwarf uttered, the girhs name : 

“Launa 1 ” 

What more he said, Oyvind knew not, for he 
spoke in a language foreign to him. Then he turned 
to Oyvind: 

‘T warned you,” he snarled. ^‘Have nothing to 
do with these reptiles! Beware of them! There is 
nothing in your experience of life to teach you the 
depravity of these creatures or the depths to which 
they will descend to win an earthling to their filthy 
ways ! Beware of them ; not one is fit to mate with 
an earthling ! It is not for that Mokakala opened the 
passage in the mountain to let you in !” 

Again Oyvind heard that name. Who was this 
Mokakala? Evidently the ruler of this mysterious 
kingdom. He hoped he might see the personage, for 
his fate lay not on the knees of the gods, it was with 
Mokakala. 

Silently Oyvind followed the hunchback towards 
the lights that twinkled in the distance. Launa had 
slunk away among the crevices of the mountain, and 
the spell was still sufficiently strong so his thoughts 
were mainly occupied by her. Would he ever see her 
again? he wondered. Tho he was happy in his de- 
liverance he was not ready to bless the deliverer. 
The hunchback divined his attitude : 

“Don’t you know the underearthlings are people 
without souls?” he asked. “Don’t you know they 


THB WHITE DAWN 


119 


are mere animals without any of the finer qualities of 
the human, so low, so filthy that your very heart 
would cringe within you should I describe them.” 

Oyvind wondered at the strange words as he si- 
lently followed his leader. Perhaps this was true, 
but it was not all. That they were without souls did 
not explain the crushing sorrow depicted on every 
face. He was well acquainted with the wild forest- 
things which are believed to have no souls, and they 
were happy. The birds sang, the squirrels played. 
He had even caught a staid old bear playing with the 
cubs and the rest of the family. 

The few moments he had spent in the subter- 
ranean kingdom had shown him that its inhabitants 
were absolutely devoid of happiness. They were a 
people under a curse. They could not laugh, nor 
sing, nor play. The wild animals, moving freely 
under God's heaven, never suffered from any such 
curse as these, he knew that full well. Did the 
hunchback know, he wondered. 

Again they passed groups of people at work. 
Again he noticed the absence of merriment, even of 
conversation. Here and there a worker lifted a 
gloomy face, casting a quick, searching look at Oy- 
vind's. Always it was a woman and always she 
dropped her eyes in silent resignation as to the loss 
of a desire that was all-consuming. 

He shuddered as he followed the hunchback — to 
face what? He had often doubted the existence of 
the Asa-gods and of the White Christ. Like the 


120 


THB WHITE DAWN 


rest, in order to protect life and limb, he had ac- 
cepted Olaf’s learning, and as the rest, tho he had 
little faith in any of the gods, he had continued in 
secret to make sacrificial offerings to Asa-Thor, 
to Odin, to Freya, to Frey. Now he folded his 
hands and prayed to the Holy Mother as Father 
Anselmo had taught him. If she could not protect 
him now, he was lost indeed. 

They had reached the upper step of the terrace 
and stood on the wide marble floor, behind a second 
row of pillars that ran the entire length of the 
veranda. This they crossed and stopped before 
double doors, guarded by four men in the livery of 
royal service. Their uniform consisted of white 
woolen coats, grey breeches, fastened at the knees 
with gold chains, grey leg-coverings and low shoes, 
fastened with gold buckles. Their caps were made 
of green wool, ornamented with gold filigree. Their 
hair was long and black, their faces waxy white, 
their eyes black and filled with the gloom that char- 
acterized the people in Mokakala’s kingdom. 

They held aloft gleaming battle-axes. These they 
ceremoniously lowered while Oyvind, followed by the 
hunchback, passed thru the double doors into the 
ante-chamber. 

This room extended along the entire front of the 
building and was of enormous length. The richly 
carved ceiling was held up by a colonnade of which 
the pillars were ornamented with gold and other 
precious metals. The chairs and divans were simi- 


THU WHITB DAWK 


121 


larly ornamented. It seemed to Oyvind that they 
possessed more gold than any other metal. 

A wide door leading to a smaller room was 
screened by curtains woven of metals in which gold 
predominated. Here were other guards in livery, 
with their battle-axes. Oyvind and the hunchback 
passed thru. They were now in a small ante-chamber 
that led into an octagonal room occupying the first 
story of an octagonal tower, one of the two that 
flanked the central building. Here were four guards, 
but they were elf-maidens, and in their hands were 
white wands. These they held point down while 
they obsequiously parted the curtains for the two 
earthlings to pass thru. 

Oyvind stood for a moment with bated breath. 
The room was lighted by hundreds of tiny flames, 
playing in little grooves, hewn in the marble that 
constituted the ceiling. The white floor was almost 
covered by a rug, woven of precious metals, while 
the > eight walls were hung with similar material. 
There was only one piece of furniture in the room, 
a throne, which occupied one entire wall. The 
throne itself was fashioned of pure gold and was 
hung with curtains of crimson silk and wool, reach- 
ing from the canopy above and, on both sides, falling 
to the floor. Before the throne, scintillating in all 
the colors of the rainbow, lay a rug, woven of pure 
gold, set with precious stones. Ranged on both 
sides of the throne stood guards leaning on their 
battle-axes. • 


122 


THB WHITE DAWN 


It was not the magnificence of the room nor the 
looks of the guards that took Oyvind’s breath away. 
It was the appearance of one who sat on the throne. 
Mokakala was a woman, then. She who, with sceptre 
and crown, sat on the throne, was a woman. He 
looked back at the hunchback, but he lay sprawling 
like an enormous crab by the curtains thru which 
they had but now entered. Then he turned once 
more and looked at the queen. 

He knew she was an earthling, tho the curse of 
the region lay heavy upon her. Nay, besides the 
subtle despair that lay upon the rest, her face indi- 
cated that she bore a sorrow, alien to the others. 
He was looking into the face of another, one of his 
own kind, who knew not song nor laughter, who 
had no hope for an ultimate readjustment of that 
which had gone wrong, and who, in addition to this, 
carried a sorrow so all-consuming that Oyvind 
forgot all else in the new pity that took possession 
of him. 

Her eyes were blue as mountain-pools at sunset, 
and Oyvind almost wept at what he read in their 
sorrowful depths. Her vivid lips gave her face its 
only splash of color, her teeth were white and per- 
fect. Taken all in all, she was a strikingly beautiful 
woman of thirty at most. Even while she was seated 
he knew she was tall and stately. 

He was not surprised when she addressed him in 
his ovm language. Involuntarily he knelt and kissed 
her hand. 


THE WHITE DAWN 


123 


expected you/’ she said. Her voice was sweet, 
but it lacked a quality that should have spoken to 
him as from a sister. Here was a human being 
whose experience had been such as to shut her out 
of fellowship with Oyvind. He might well pity her, 
but thru her voice there would never come to him an 
answering throb of sympathy. He stood overawed 
in the speculation upon what cataclysm of pain could 
have overtaken this woman who, evidently, was the 
queen of the underearthlings. Her next words puz- 
zled him: 

“It was for you, then, that Mokakala opened 
the passage in the mountains?” she asked. Then 
she rose and with a motion of her hand invited 
him to follow thru a door leading to another 
ante-room. 

This ante-room was long, extending across the 
front of the palace to the second octagonal tower. 
It was furnished with chairs and divans, covered 
with woolen rugs. Woolen rugs were on the floor, 
too. Four girls were keeping guard over the door 
leading to the octagonal room, and several others 
lounged about, but came to immediate position of 
obedient service at the entrance of the queen. 

They were dressed in short, blue skirts, embroi- 
dered in gold and silver, white linen waists and tiny 
blue capes, which they wore over the left shoulder. 
The guards parted the curtains, and as Oyvind was 
about to follow the queen into the adjoining room 
he felt himself growing hot and cold by turns. There, 


124 


THB WHITE DAWN 


so close to him that he could have touched her, stood 
Launa, gazing at him with her burning eyes. 

He could scarcely keep his thoughts collected, 
for he was still under her spell. Every nerve in him 
called loudly for her, and all else was forgotten. He 
still trembled from the shock of the unexpected 
meeting when he entered the second octagonal room. 

This was an exact replica of the first, except that 
this one possessed no throne. Instead, a large 
chaise-lounge occupied the length of the wall. Here, 
among woolen shawls and feather pillows, sat the 
most unique figure Oyvind had ever seen. It was an 
old man whose hair was white as carded wool, and 
whose dead-white, parchment-like skin was crossed 
and recrossed with such myriad wrinkles as to give 
the impression that centuries must have passed over 
his head. His hands, lying idly in his lap, looked 
like gnarled old wood, and ended in long, claw-like 
nails. Everything about him spoke of incredible age, 
but his eyes were bright, suggesting a weird, un- 
canny life. 

Oyvind cringed before those eyes. They were 
black and piercing, as heated steel, eager, hungry. 
In their depths lurked a subtle dread, as in those of 
an animal, trapped and at the mercy of an unknown 
power. Oyvind read ferocity and a certain eagerness 
which in an ordinary person would pass for hope, 
mingled with a dread so terrible in its intensity that 
it struck him with an instant chill. 

The fearful eyes were measuring him for some- 


THB WHITE DAWN 


125 


thing, he knew not what. Oyvind’s fate was in the 
hands of this fearful mannikin, this relic of a for- 
gotten age! This was a creature of a foregone gen- 
eration, who should have been buried, perhaps cen- 
turies ago. 

‘T have brought you to Mokakala, the king of 
the underearthlings,” said the queen, and Oyvind 
knelt over the gnarled, claw-like hand the old man 
gave him. This, then, was Mokakala, whose name 
he had already heard several times during the short 
stay under the earth. 

Mokakala spoke a few, feverish words in the lan- 
guage of his own people, which Oyvind could not 
understand. It was around him the conversation be- 
tween Mokakala and the queen turned. He knew 
that from the close scrutiny under which he stood, 
from them both. Why had he not plunged into the 
tjern? That would have been preferable to this. 
Why had he not taken his course to Holmgaard, to 
Svithjord? Why had he not sailed with the expedi- 
tion around Norvasund with the men who were now 
on their way to Jorsala? Why was he not some- 
where else, anywhere but here? Mokakala was brief 
in whatever directions he gave. After a profound 
bow to the old relic, Oyvind followed the queen from 
the room, leaving Mokakala among his pillows. 

Arrived in the ante-room, the queen led him, to 
the left, down a long corridor. At the end of this 
was a large room which they entered. It was dimly 
lighted by jets of fire, enclosed by globes of ground 


126 


THE WHITE DAWN 


glass. The hangings of the room were made of 
white ,wool, as were also the rugs and blankets, 
spread over couches and chairs. Even the windows 
opening on the court were draped with cloth of white 
wool. 

In an open fire-place at one end of the room 
burned a fire, giving a cozy warmth to the room. On 
the middle of the floor stood a child’s crib. The 
queen led the way to that and, as she stopped beside 
the cradle, she dismissed the maids. Tenderly she 
turned the soft, white blanket away from the rosy 
face of a sleeping child : 

“My son,” she whispered. 

The child, two or three years of age, was one of 
the most beautiful children Oyvind had ever seen. 
Hiis pure, white face had a healthy flush about the 
cheeks and lips, his little hands were curled up like 
rose leaves beneath his chin, and his hair was a pro- 
fusion of yellow curls. 

They stood for a moment in silence, watching the 
sleeping child. Then, with the tender motions of a 
loving mother, she patted the blanket into shape, 
called the nurses back to their charge and led the 
way to another, smaller, more homelike room than 
the one with the throne. 

Here she motioned Oyvind to a seat and took 
one opposite. 

“Of course you must understand that Mokakala 
had something in view when he opened the passage 
for you,” she began without any preliminaries. “In 


THB WHITB DAWN 


127 


all his reign he has permitted only four earthlings to 
enter his realm, each one to serve in his scheme of 
things. You are the fourth one of these. That you 
may understand what is required of you, I must tell 
you the story of his people. 

“It is now a thousand years since they came here 
to live in the bowels of the earth. They camie to 
fulfil a curse laid upon them by their God. At 
first the cavern was but small, but as the cen- 
turies rolled away each succeeding generation has 
enlarged it till now it would take you a week to 
reach its end.^^ 

“But all these lights, this fire, I can not under- 
stand !” cried Oyvind ; “and the food for so many 
people, where does it come from? Being human, 
they must eat.’’ 

“They must eat at any rate,” she returned, an- 
swering his last question first. “Outside of the 
mountains are large valleys, as yet inaccessible to 
the earthlings. Here they reap great fields of com 
and cut hay for the winter. In the forest on the 
mountain side they keep numerous herds of cattle, 
and sheep and goats. They dare not remain under 
the stars after midnight, but they are so many that 
they easily accomplish their work during their allotted 
time. 

“As for the lights, they are the same kind of fires 
that burn in many places of the North. When the 
mountain is being hollowed out the crevice allows 
the combustible air to escape, and the workmen 


128 


THB WHITE DAWN 


simply take their fire-irons from which a spark sets 
it burning. It thus serves two purposes. It gives 
warmth and light while it destroys the fumes that 
otherwise would kill all living beings. 

“And the air?” asked Oyvind. “I observe that 
the air is very fresh here.” 

“It comes thru great openings in the mountain, 
led here by a secret method of tunneling. This is 
known only to a few who are initiated, perhaps to 
keep the underearthlings from escaping and pollut- 
ing the earthlings with their presence. All I know 
about the system is that Mokakala has one of the 
shafts opened when he wants an earthling. 

“I have now been given special permission to 
speak on a forbidden subject, that I may give you 
the information I am delegated to impart to you. I 
have received permission to speak of God, a privilege 
which in this subterranean region is denied us. Now 
I shall tell you how this came to pass. 

“Mokakala’s progenitors were Jews. On the day 
when the Master toiled up the steep path that leads 
to the top of Golgotha, crushed by the weight of his 
cross, Zorak with his family jeered at Him. He 
even spat upon the Savior’s garments. For this Je- 
hovah pronounced a curse upon Zorak and his de- 
scendants. He, with his wife and children, was taken 
into the North and thrust into the gloomy cavern 
under the mountain. Until a certain thing comes to 
pass they must stay here. Now, after almost a thou- 
sand years, there is a chance that, with the next 


THB WHITE DAWN 


129 


generation, the curse may be lifted. You can not 
understand what that means to Mokakala, to me! 

“Until that deliverance comes they are still to 
remain here, without a God, without souls. You can 
never grasp the woe and desolation of that condition. 
Zorak was a wicked Jew, and his heart had been 
far from the Great Jehovah, but he lived with the 
privilege of calling upon Him. He had done so in 
the past, carelessly and selfishly, yet it filled a void 
with which he had not been fully acquainted till it 
was too late. 

“More essential to the human heart even than the 
sunshine they say falls upon the earth, is God’s listen- 
ing ear. No human suffering, no desolation of de- 
spair is as great as that which is born from the denial 
of the privilege of addressing God. They were left 
here in the barren clefts of a mighty subterranean 
cavern without any life but that which they brought in 
their own bodies, no sunshine, and most terrible of 
all, no God. Mere human intellect can not grasp the 
fearsomeness of it. The human heart is fairly crushed 
beneath the horror of it ! The depth of despair in 
the human heart that dares not claim God’s father- 
hood is too deep for finite minds to grasp. The loss 
of the human being who no longer dares to lift his 
face to the Infinite Source of his existence is too 
colossal for human mind to grasp. 

“And that is not all. The Eternal Power that 
created these unfortunate people is far off. The 
Divine Ear is turned away, and but an empty echo 

5 


130 


THB WHITE DAWN 


would send their supplications back upon themselves 
should they attempt a word of prayer. Neither you 
nor any other human being can fathom the eternal 
agony of these people with human bodies, human 
intellects, and an eternal repentance gnawing at their 
vitals as a worm in the heart of a flower. These 
people have no communication with their God, whose 
listening ear is turned away.” 

Oyvind sat in silence for a few moments after 
the queen had spoken. A sudden chiUing fear came 
over him that reminded him of a day when suddenly 
he had come upon a precipice from which by a mere 
hairbreadth he had saved himself. It seemed to him 
now that every one of these people must have gone 
down just such an abyss and were forever hving in 
the pain of mangled bodies and forlorn hopes. 

“I catch a glimmer of your truth,” he returned 
in a thick, unnatural voice. "T am afraid we of the 
earth, too, are culpable. We know but little of the 
White Christ. We worship Him in the churches, it 
is true, but it is because we are afraid of the priests 
with their penance and of Olaf. In secret we wor- 
ship the Asa-gods and make sacrificial offerings. 
Twice in the spring we hold feasts and offer sacri- 
fices to the Asas for a good season. In the fall of 
the year we have another. Then we supplicate the 
gods for a mild winter. As for me, I have not yet 
quite learned to believe in the White Christ. So, like 
the underearthlings, I, too, have been without a 
God!” 


THE WHITE DAWN 


131 


She shook her head. “Don’t say such a thing!” 
she cried. “You do not understand me after all. 
Yoiu- belief in the Asas, crude and corrupted as it 
is, must be a feeble representation of the true God. 
It must have helped even to open the way for the 
White Christ.” 

“I can’t understand how this can be,” replied 
Oyvind with intense eagerness. “Our Asa-god belief 
we always have had in the North. Saga tells us it 
was brought with the very first of our kind into our 
land. I wish you were right in thinking it is the 
same, but I am afraid — ” 

“Yes,” murmured the queen, “you have always 
had the God idea. In all the length and breadth of 
the world above there are no people that do not 
pKDSsess, in one form or another, the idea of a 
higher being. Among all God’s creation there are 
no people who have lost the right to their souls, lost 
the right to their God, except Mokakala and his 
people.” 

“But I still don’t see what good our pagan belief 
has done us if, as the priest says, the White Christ 
is the true God. In our Asa-worship there is nothing 
that brings us to the Savior,” replied Oyvind anx- 
iously. 

“I have not the learning to say what good it has 
done you so far, but to me it seems that you Norse- 
men brought with you a germ of the true God- 
religion and that you have followed a gleam of light 
that will soon bring you into a full and living dawn.” 


132 


THB WHITE DAWN 


“And the gleam you speak of, has it lived in our 
heathen worship?” asked Oyvind. 

“When you Northmen are in utter trouble, in the 
agony of your soul, you call, not upon Thor nor 
Frey nor yet upon Odin. You call upon the All- 
father,” she replied triumphantly. “You know not 
who He is nor what, you feel you need something 
more potent than the Asas, is it not so? Does it 
not indicate a gleam of light, illuminating what 
otherwise would have been an endless heathen 
night?” 

“Is that all?” asked Oyvind, rather chagrined. 

“No,” she returned after a short pause. “Your 
far-going Vikings came in contact with the Christ 
idea in southern lands. I can not help thinking that 
they brought its influence back with them, unknow- 
ingly, as we might the odor of flowers in our gar- 
ments. But that was not all. They were fond of 
mating with the dusky maidens of the warm lands 
who brought the belief in the White Christ and, 
with the milk in their breasts, gave it to the suck- 
ing babe.” 

Oyvind nodded. Gunlaug’s mother must have 
been like that. “Then it is our own faith that has 
come to us with Olaf from the land of the Engles?” 
he asked. 

“It is the faith of your race, such as they probably 
possessed it long ages before they reached the 
North,” she replied, “also the faith of the women 
brought here from the South, wives to the Vikings.” 


THE WHITE DAWN 


133 


“And since it must have belonged to our race 
and since it has been brought back here from time 
to time by God-fearing women who have become 
the mothers of men, why is our worship a corrupt 
heathen faith?’’ he asked gloomily. “Useless because 
it has never led us to the White Christ?” 

“Because it was handed down from one genera- 
tion to another by word of mouth,” she replied. “It 
changed every time it was retold. Had you pos- 
sessed books, it would not have been so. The women 
who come from the South have no books, in fact, 
they are too few and weak to exert any strong in- 
fluence over many people. This new way is the only 
way. The learning that comes to you now comes 
firmly fixed in written records, such as they were 
made by those who in the Holy Land wandered with 
the Master. You see, being written, they have re- 
mained unchanged thru the years.” 

“But our religion was heathen and perverted. I 
don’t see of what good it could have been,” persisted 
Oyvind. 

“You will if you compare yourself with these 
dreadful creatures that live within this mountain,” 
she returned. “You have possessed the freedom of 
calling upon a Higher Power that you confess is 
above yourselves, and it has made you a nobler race 
than you otherwise could have been. Without it 
you would have been as a toddling infant far from 
home, beyond the comforting power of the parents. 
You have never been crushed under the conditions 


134 


THE WHITE DAWN 


so dreadful, the desolation so supreme as that which 
envelopes the human being who dares not mention 
God’s Holy Name.” 

“How were their souls removed without their 
lives?” asked Oyvind suddenly. 

“They were not removed,” she replied. “They 
never had any, because there is nothing in their lives 
higher than themselves. It is for this they dare not 
laugh, dare not hope. Possessing the human body 
and the human intellect, they are reduced to the status 
of the brute. With their human attributes follow 
the knowledge of their defect. It is this that makes 
their unending punishment, their incessant hunger for 
the restoration of that which they have lost.” 

“Is there a possibility of their souls ever coming 
to them?” inquired Oyvind. 

“There is one way, at least to their way of think- 
ing, by which they may possess a tiny spark of eternal 
life, or you may call it soul, but, more correctly speak- 
ing, that will grow into a soul, and vicariously they 
may then come in for the blessings of prayers. That 
possibility comes when one of our maidens can entice 
an earthling into her presence and, in his weak mo- 
ment, throw her fire-iron over him. It is believed 
that after this she, in a mystic way, lives in his soul 
and that she receives a small benefit of his prayers. 
Also should there ever exist a germal life, a life in 
which they were both represented, that would even- 
tually, in a much shorter period, ripen into a soul for 
the mother. 


THU WHITE DAWN 


135 


“Because of this belief the elf-maidens are given 
two hours under every full moon when they are per- 
mitted to leave the mountain. They have three 
chances to throw their iron. If they fail on the third 
attempt they are lost. You will easily understand 
how eager they are to continue life, even in a dim, 
inadequate condition, when I tell you they do not 
even count the penalty of the consequences, which 
is death.” 

“How is that?” asked Oyvind, and she replied: 

“It is written in Mokakala’s book that none shall 
be born of mixed blood. The mother and the unborn 
must die together. You know, of course, what hap- 
pens to the earthling who is thus, to a certain extent, 
changed from the human to the brute nature. You 
have undoubtedly known those who have been 
mountain-taken. They must always live under the 
curse, not even the elf-maiden’s death removes that. 
It is written that every time there is a full moon he, 
too, becomes a mere human body without a soul 
and with only the instincts of a brute, a fit com- 
panion for the elf-maiden. You can not understand 
the horror of such people’s position. I tell you this 
as a warning, for it is only by keeping away from 
the elf-maidens that you may fulfil Mokakala’s hopes 
in you.” 

Oyvind felt his cheeks burn, and he lowered his 
eyes. Had she guessed his narrow escape from 
Launa? “What is there to fear?” he asked at last. 

“Those who are pure in thoughts and deed need 


136 


THB WHITE DAWN 


not fear them,” she replied, “but those others must 
be under the sharpest look-out, for over them the 
elf-maidens have full sway. If you are in any kind 
of danger from them, be on your guard! If one of 
them gets her fire-iron over you, then you’re lost. 
If she fails in that but entices you into her presence, 
you suffer all the horrors of one who is mountain- 
taken, but you will be released at her death. Be 
careful, for if you are mountain-taken, not only will 
you be lost, but our hopes will be in vain.” 

“How can your hopes rest in me?” asked Oyvind. 

“I will tell you,” she replied. “I was only two 
years old when I was taken into Mokakala’s king- 
dom. He opened the passage and sent a servant 
after me. Whose child I am, under what circum- 
stances I came into being, I cannot say. I know 
that my mother dropped me into the tjern, and that 
her handmaid, in order that I should have a ser- 
vant in the land of Hel, threw her son in with me. 
And so Mokakala received us, for it is written that 
he can have no earthling that is not destined to lose 
his life in Blackwater Tjern.” 

“And the boy?” It was a question. 

“Is Hans, the hunchback,” she replied. “He was 
not expected, so he fell to the bottom and received 
such injuries that he became a cripple. It is neces- 
sary that earthlings from time to time enter Mo- 
kakala’s kingdom, but we can not use a cripple.” 

“Did you ever hear of the castles on the 
meadow?” asked Oyvind. 


THU WHITE DAWN 


137 


“They were of no use to the underearthlings/’ 
she replied harshly. “They were a hundred years 
before my time, but Mokakala knows about them. 
They were not suited to our purpose, for they were 
unclean and mated with the underearthlings. But 
since the marriage between the soulless and the 
human, in the sight of God, is an abomination, they 
all died. They, too, lost their souls in dire punish- 
ment, their human birth-right. All but the two 
lovers. They were pure, but they died before they 
reached the tjern.” 

“And the tjern?’’ questioned Oyvind, “we have 
a belief that when the wrong done the lovers is 
righted, the tjern will resume its pristine condi- 
tion. Is it so?” 

She shook her head. “The lovers have long gone 
to their rewards,” she said. “That was not the 
wrong. It was the punishment for their abomina- 
tions that struck the people of the meadow. That 
wrong will be righted with the coming of an earth- 
ling who has the strength of purpose to avoid the 
fire-irons of the under-earth maidens. When such 
a one comes and gives me three promises, which he 
bids fair to keep, then the conditions shall have been 
fulfilled; and to pay, Mokakala will change the tjern 
back into a meadow.” 

“You will understand the importance of these 
promises when I tell you that if they are kept, in its 
own time, the souls of Mokakala^s subjects will re- 
turn. The sign of the beast will pass. Laughter, 


138 


THB WHITE DAWN 


song, gladness, and hope will come to them. Mo- 
kakala and his people will then live under the stars, 
they will have the sunshine upon them. Once more 
will Zorak’s people dare to call upon the living God, 
again Jehovah will turn to them a listening ear. Can 
you grasp it all?” 

"‘It seems much to grasp,” returned Oyvind, '‘but 
since so much depends upon one, like me for ex- 
ample, why are the elf-maidens permitted to en- 
danger these hopes with the possibility of making 
him unfit?” 

“You have some reason for asking such a ques- 
tion,” admitted the queen. “But we must have a 
man with a character. Then, too, the elf-maidens 
do not know why you are here. All they know is 
to follow their instinct for securing even the faintest 
semblance of a life after this. Also a man, to serve 
us, must be of fine physique, of fine mentality, and 
devout. For this reason Hans was useless, a man 
whose downfall could be brought about by the elf- 
maidens is equally useless. 

“Came one night and threw himself into the tjem, 
a young man. Him Mokakala rescued, and he be- 
came my husband. He was all that could be de- 
sired, and our stay together was wonderful. Even 
here the happiness of a perfect love was permitted. 
Not even in the heaven, promised to those who have 
souls, can one expect greater joy than was ours.” 

Then the clarified ecstasy which for a moment 
lighted up her face faded away, leaving her eyes 


THB WHITE DAWN 


139 


filled with that unnamable sorrow he had observed 
in her. After a slight pause she continued : 

“He is no longer here. He left my babe and 
me! Once I had a hope he might return, but that 
is dead now.’’ 

“Is there a way by which he can come back?” 
asked Oyvind in surprise. “Surely, if he loves you 
he’ll return.” 

“There is a way for him to return, and he loves 
me,” she replied, “but I am afraid that life down 
here among the underearthlings must have come to 
seem like an abomination to him,. He had been bap- 
tized and, because of that, Mokakala’s realm had no 
hold over him. I can not reach him, for I am not 
baptized.” 

“May I ask you,” ventured Oyvind timidly, “have 
you a soul?” 

“Assuredly,” she replied. “So has my baby and 
Hans. My husband was permitted to teach us about 
the White Christ, but he was not allowed to speak 
of Him to the underearthlings nor mention His 
Name anywhere except here in this room. No one 
dares come in here except those who have a soul, 
and I dare not speak of God anywhere but here.” 

“So that is why you know these things and talk 
as you do?” he asked. 

“Yes,” she replied, simply, “that is the reason.” 

She sat for a moment in deep thought, as if in 
dread of the next step. If she’d only make haste 
and tell him what part he was to play in this strange 


140 


THB WHITE DAWN 


tragedy, enacted within the bowels of the mountain ! 
How he wished the dreadful idea of jumping into the 
tjern had never occurred to him! His punishment 
came swift and terrible. Then she went on : 

“As I was saying, Mokakala had something spe- 
cial in view when he had you taken into the moun- 
tain. He does not speak your tongue, so I am to 
negotiate. Think carefully, then answer me. 

“You wish to wed Gunlaug, daughter of Thorold 
the Strong, son of Sigvat Skaldaspiller. Her father 
has promised you the maiden if, within three weeks 
from that time, or before she becomes the bride of 
Gunstein the Brave, the tjern shall resume its pristine 
condition. Only to Mokakala is this feat of trans- 
formation possible. 

“If you promise three things he will fulfil the 
conditions under which you may become husband 
to the woman you love ; if not, then she becomes the 
bride to a man fated to abuse her for a fault of 
which you are only too fully aware. Then to the 
elf-maidens will we give you, and, there is no fate 
too horrible for them to prepare for an earthling. 
Now, what do you say?” 

Oyvind only shook his head and she went on: 

“We have long observed you and Gunlaug. Mo- 
kakala felt that you were people thru whom he could 
complete his scheme. He was glad when he learned 
that you were denied the maiden, for an unhappy 
lover is apt to drown himself. If you could only 
be induced to end your days in Blackwater Tjern! 


THB WHITE, DAWN 


141 


So he sent the elf-maidens to way-lay you in your 
sleep, out in the forest, and whisper the idea into 
your waking mind. It worked well, for you came to 
believe the only way you could serve Gunlaug was 
by dying. It was only a step to induce you to try 
the tjern. 

“Mokakala has no power to restore life, so he 
sent Hans to keep you from drowning. He was able 
to bring you in here without your having plunged 
into the tjern. Of this he was so proud that he came 
to tell me and to prepare me for seeing you as dry 
as when you left the sandy beach of the tjern.” 

Oyvind’s face turned red, for he remembered what 
had befallen while Hans had been from him. Then 
he asked her to name the three promises. 

He laughed when she told him. They seemed so 
remote, so impossible of fulfilment. Surely it was 
safe to make them. 

They seemed more important, however, when a 
few minutes later he stood in the court-yard, wait- 
ing for Hans to take him back to the tjern. He felt 
sure that Mokakala could restore the tjern, and if so, 
then he must keep the three promises. He shivered 
as he stood there. The thoughtless words he had 
spoken to Gunlaug, in the shadow of the great pine, 
came back to him with a new and sinister meaning. 

He would sell his soul to the Christians’ Devil, 
he had told her. Was this not what he had done? 
What was the dreadful thing which they had learned 
to fear as the Christians’ Devil if he were not ex- 


142 


THE WHITE DAWN 


emplified in the person of Mokakala and his iniqui- 
tous followers? These creatures among whom lived 
so much that was unclean. 

It was not the Christians’ Devil alone, but hun- 
dreds of underearthling fiends that were fighting 
for the last shred of his cringing soul. How could 
he go back and marry Gunlaug, how could he keep 
his promises? Death was simpler. Why not seek 
Launa; in that, at least, lay death. It would be 
better than this other, that he had promised, now 
that he saw it in all its hideousness. The Christians’ 
roaring Hell awaited him anyway, why not seek 
Dauna and let her bring him forgetfulness, at least 
for a time? 

Launa had no soul, was marked by the beast, but 
he? In a generation, a thousand years before her 
birth, Launa’s birthright had been lost. He, like 
the man in the Holy Book, had sold his, not for a 
mess of pottage but for a promise of a few years’ 
questionable happiness. Came the question: Would 
it be happiness after all, with this worm gnawing at 
his vitals, which, he knew, would never leave him in 
peace, by night or by day, would never allow him 
to forget? Something had already entered his soul 
and made him afraid to face his kind. Almost un- 
consciously he looked about him for Launa. 

As an answer to his unholy wish Launa appeared. 
Again she beckoned him to follow her into the 
gloomy region beyond the lights. Again he held 
her in his arms. Once more she brought from her 


THE WHITE DAWN 


143 


bosom the fire-iron which should forever bind him 
to her, but he was on the look-out, and quick as a 
flash he gripped her wrists. With a sudden outward 
swing of the hand he sent it from him, and a tinkling 
sound came back to them from where it fell among 
the rocks. Oyvind laughed, for he had disarmed the 
elf-maiden and was no longer afraid of her power. 
But her breath continued to fan his cheeks, her 
hands still clasped him. When Hans, a few minutes 
later, arrived to take Oyvind back to the tjern, he 
uttered maledictions against the elf-woman and 
against the man. 

Oyvind shivered as if he had come to himself 
after a horrible dream. He knew it now. Some- 
thing of his soul had left him and something of the 
brute had taken its place. He recalled what the 
queen had told him and recoiled in horror at what 
he had become. 

Had he been only a few hours within the moun- 
tain, or had it been a century since he emerged from 
the tunnel? He almost hoped it was a century, then 
he would not need to face those he had left behind. 
Was he, too, marked by the beast? he wondered. 
Would he, too, be hated and feared as those who 
were mountain- taken ? For it was only by chance, 
and not to his credit, that Launa had failed to throw 
her fire-iron over him. 


CHAPTER XVII 


LEAR and fresh as a day in dreamland rose 
the wedding morning. Below the holdings 
of Thorold the Strong lay the valley, vivid 
in its greenery of wood and meadow. Here and 
there the meandering river glinted between clumps 
of trees and clusters of buildings. The farmsteads, 
with their houses circling the tun, dotted the valley, 
the small, well-tilled fields stretched out along both 
sides of the stream which, in its immediate journey 
from the mountains, danced in wild water-falls, 
played among the boulders as it descended among 
the foot-hills and moved on sedately in its winding 
course. 

Thorold’s gaard lay on a wide, shelf-like plain, 
from which the land fell gently to the level bottom 
of the valley. Back of the buildings lay the forest, 
and back of the forest stood the mountains. To the 
left, at the very edge of Thorold’s thun, the land 
dropped down in fantastic rifts and crags to the 
sandy edge of Blackwater Tjern, occupying a great, 
bowl-like depression among the mountains. To the 
east stretched the fertile field-land of Thorold the 
Strong. 

To the northwest, one of a series of mountain- 



THB WHITE DAWN 


145 


peaks, stood the highest one of them all, white and 
dazzling with its crown of eternal snow. Farther 
down, the mountain was grayish green. That was 
because it was covered with the mountain-fern, end- 
lessly trying to reach the top. Still farther down the 
color was fresher, for here the fern was accompanied 
by the juniper. Below, in a struggling procession, 
came the spruce, the pine, and here and there a 
venturesome clump of birch. At the bottom grew 
the pines, tall and majestic, mixed with more wide- 
spreading spruce and, where the forest opened, there 
were the aspen and the mountain ash, notably con- 
trasted by the slender, white-stemmed birches, whose 
delicate, fluttering foliage reflected the sunbeams that 
danced on the shining surface of their little round 
leaves. 

Tall and dark stood the mountain as it had stood 
when the earth was young. Hard and stern it stood, 
preserving its secret even from the wonderful crea- 
tive morn. But the little mountain-fern and the 
juniper whispered to him. Always they whispered of 
the sunny valleys, of the fragrant flowers, of the sun- 
shine that one day should melt the snow on his top. 
Then should come their chance to take their deli- 
cate, green covering to his very crest. 

They talked to each other, too, the juniper and 
the mountain-fern. They wanted to see who would 
be the first to reach the top, they or the pine or the 
pretty birches. Oh, the mountain-fern and the juni- 
per would be the first, they knew that. Always, since 


146 


THB WHITE DAWN 


time immemorial, the ferns had been first, always 
climbing, climbing, clothing the naked rocks. Some- 
times, forsooth, they had been compelled to give up 
for a spell, but never had they made a real retreat. 
Always they had fought on till they made good what 
they had lost, then they had moved upward an 
added jot. 

Oh, there had been times, especially in the cold 
nights, when it seemed impossible they could keep 
their hold. When it seemed their very roots would 
crinkle up beneath them and they would lose their 
grip. Then it was well to have in mind the joy that 
should be theirs with the first peep over the top ! 

Oh, yes, some day they would perch right on the 
highest pinnacle and look over! Of course, the juni- 
per, the trees, would follow the fern. They always 
did, but what of it? Wasn’t the fern going to take 
the first peep? 

Down below the forest was silent, save for a faint 
murmur. Some would think it was the wind, rus- 
tling thru the tree tops. But those who knew the 
trees were sure the sound came from their pithy 
hearts. They were mourning the passing of the old 
days. The old order was changing, they would soon 
be of the past as the old gods, the singing, the feast- 
ing. The time was coming when only the oldest 
monarchs of the forest would remember the Asas, 
when the tales of the Vikings, who carried the terror 
of the North into the remotest corner of the earth, 
would be a mere saga, told at dusk. No wonder the 


THB WHITB DAWN 


147 


trees were sad. They were singing a solemn requiem 
to the passing greatness of the Northland. 

With the Asas, the earl-kings and the renowned 
Viking, would also pass the glory of the trees. No 
one would mark their beauty nor their majesty, for 
now no one would worship within their shades. 
Now shrines, made by the hands of men, stood along 
the road-side. There was nothing left to them but 
the mountain. And the mountain was unfriendly, 
uncommunicative. He stood there with snow on his 
head, iron in his bosom, brooding, ever brooding 
over something, the oldest tree among them knew 
not what. 

But the birches, standing like a bevy of school- 
girls, being young, were cheerful. The birds sang 
among their leaves, the busy insects fluttered about 
them in the air, making pretty splashes of color. 
At their feet the little plants were gathering sub- 
stance and color for the lovely flowers and the parts 
that were to supply people’s needs. The graceful 
birches loved all things beautiful, but they loved the 
birds best of all. They fairly trembled, in their 
happiness, when a lark or a nightingale or even a 
woodpecker built its nest among their branches. 
They always guarded the secret of the tiny home so 
carefully, and the joyful song of the occupants al- 
ways found an echo in their hearts. 

But on this wedding morning even the birches 
were a little sad. They were not grieving over the 
old order. Two things bothered them : Days had 


148 


THB WHITE DAWN 


passed since they had seen Gunlaug running towards 
the trysting-place, and it had been equally long 
since they had heard her clear yodel in answer to 
Oyvind. The little leaves had always quivered with 
every vibration of the strings, with every tone of the 
girl’s voice. A sigh went thru their tops as they 
whispered among themselves of the love they had 
witnessed while they trembled for its safety. 

The midsummer sun rises early in the far North, 
but no sooner had it risen than smoke began belch- 
ing out of the chimneys on Thorold’s gaard. Al- 
ready men and maids were stirring and fires were 
blazing for the use of the cooks. There was still 
much to be done ere they were ready to receive the 
guests coming from far and near. 

The day was not far advanced when they began 
to arrive. Rich and poor, high and lowly, all were 
received with cordiality. Was not this the “honor- 
day” of Thorold’s daughter ? Every guest was 
treated to a drink of ale, as he entered the tun, and 
small honey-cakes were passed around by the girls 
and matrons, ever anxious to perform their office. 

Every road leading to Thorold’s holdings was 
alive with people. Some walked along the dusty 
highway, some rode horseback, and others drove 
in the two-wheeled cart, drawn by the little, sure- 
footed mountain horse. They were happy too, and 
the distant mountains sent back the echo of their 
laughter and gay repartee, their merry quips and 
jests, their hearty songs. And why should they not 


THE WHITE DAWN 


149 


be happy ? Thorold was rich, and there would be 
a quantity of good things to eat and to drink. There 
would be sport, too, and music, and it would last, 
without any interruption, for a week. 

It was a motly crowd, this one, on the way to the 
wedding of Thorold’s daughter. Among them were 
free-lances from the king’s court, musicians, some of 
them carrying harps, some lutes, and others various 
instruments seldom seen in the North. There were 
big, brawny men from the land of the Scots, smaller 
men with swarthy skin, talking in a soft tongue no 
one could understand. These were men who had 
followed the homing prow of the Viking-boats from 
far-away ports on their way to Jorsala. These were 
jugglers and fortune-tellers, hoping to reap a boun- 
teous harvest. There were Gypsies too, with their 
fantastic head-dress, their cheap jewelry and their 
tiny tambourines. They would be well treated, for 
this day demanded even greater hospitality than 
ever, a quality never wanting in the North. 

These were few in number, compared with the 
bonde-folk, like Thorold himself. There were men 
of high standing among them, too, for Thorold was 
of kingly blood, the great-grandson of Harald Haar- 
fagre. The men from Olaf’s court were dressed in 
fine, outlandish garments, plumes in their hats, lace 
at their throats and wrists, with fancy ornaments 
and bright colors. The bjz^nder were dressed in their 
best — dark breeches fastened at the knees with sil- 
ver buckles, round, short jackets, with double rows 


150 


THB WHITE DAWN 


of silver buttons, and little, round caps. The legs 
were wound with woolen cloth, and on the feet were 
low shoes, which on the well-dressed men were 
buckled with silver. 

The women wore short, black skirts with small, 
black jackets and white sleeves and bosom. On 
their heads were fantastically arranged white linen 
kerchiefs, and on their breast the sylje, made from 
silver, except in the case of the very rich, who had 
them made from beaten gold. They wore grey, 
woolen leg-coverings, fastened below the knee with 
woven strips of gay-colored wool. On their feet 
were low shoes, like those of the men, fastened with 
buckles of silver or brass. 

At her side each women carried a small bundle. 
It contained a little neat-foot oil for dressing wounds, 
long strips of white linen, and — to meet the su- 
preme contingency — her husband’s shroud. A thou- 
sand years ago times were gay in the Northland. 
Amid the feasting and music, the merry dance and 
the smiles of the rosy-faced girls, a Northman’s 
blood was apt to run fast. The head was apt to 
turn hot, and his sheath-knife never sat tight at his 
hip. It was best to be prepared for the most serious 
emergency. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


a UT in the tun Thorold was busy receiving 
his guests. His attentions were divided be- 
tween directing his men to take the horses 
and in keeping an eye on the maids that they let no 
one escape the flowing bowl, the trenchers piled 
high with cakes. That would be a shame he never 
could suflfer. 

“Skaal, Thorold, skald, for your pretty daughter !” 
said Guthorm Halsen from Skallet, draining the 
wooden bowl Alfhild gave him. “But was there no 
young blood in the valley to bid the maiden fair, 
that you should wed her to a man whose heart is 
burnt out, whose pate is bald, and whose years place 
him with such old salts as you and I?” 

Guthorm lived still higher up than Thorold. For 
twenty years he had lived alone, ever since one 
night when he had returned from a long stay abroad, 
some said in Viking-raid, some said from a home 
somewhere beyond the mountains, far to the east. 
No one knew much about Guthorm, and no one 
asked him any questions. It was strange, too. for he 
was the kindest old fellow in all of Lesje. He knew 
more of the night-folk, the underearthlings, and the 
nisser than any other man who lived in the valley. 




153 


THE WHITE DAWN 


This had given him a peculiar place among his neigh- 
bors, who half feared him, half looked to him for 
aid in the case of an evil eye, or in a case of being 
mountain-taken. 

Thorold took Guthorm’s question with a short 
laugh : 

“In sooth there was,” he replied, “and he bade 
me fair for the lass in an open and manly way. Oy- 
vind the Skald possesses a tiny gaard, but nothing 
to set forth to Thorold’s daughter. For this reason 
I told him to see about getting Blackwater Tjern 
changed back to meadow. This, then, should be his 
patrimony, and he might come to bid me fair for my 
daughter’s hand.” 

“Oyvind the Skald is a fine young carl, Thorold,” 
replied Guthorm gravely. “Methinks she could go 
far and then do worse than taking him.” 

“Well, he has my word,” returned Thorold 
laughing, with a nod towards the cliff, hiding the 
tjern from view. “There is still time for him to 
perform the little miracle. Then he can lead my 
daughter to the altar. Thorold the Strong, son of 
Sigvat Skaldaspiller, never breaks his word.” 

“Be not too sure it won‘t come to pass, friend 
Thorold,” cautioned Guthorm. “We live in won- 
drous times. May I ask if Oyvind is here this day?” 

“Not I have time to search for the knave,” re- 
plied Thorold, “nor have I time to see how fares the 
tjern. Perhaps your young friend is bridging it. 
But I must away, there are others who would talk 


THB WHITE DAWN 


153 


to Thorold on this day.” With a rumbling laugh 
he walked away and was soon engaged in jolly 
badinage with some of the newcomers. 

Guthorm stood for a few moments where Thor- 
old had left him, a far-away look in his eyes. His 
thoughts were with the young skald. In what 
wretched corner was he eating out his heart that 
sunny day? It recalled to him the cold winter night 
when he had seen a woman take a small child out 
from the warm, lighted guest-hall, out from the 
music, the laughter, and the happy crowds of people, 
into a cold, lonely, and dark out-building. As he 
did that night, he vowed he’d find Oyvind and bring 
him back into his kingdom, even tho he should miss 
the very ceremony at the church. 


CHAPTER XIX 


UNLAUG was in her chamber with Gun- 
hild and Ylve, arranging her bridal finery. 
The crimson gown with its accessories had 
been adjusted, now Ylve was struggling with the 
tiny shoes. Gunhild brought the crown and placed 
it on the heavy braids of Gunlaug’s hair. The bitter 
tears rolled down her cheeks, for this was the 
mother’s privilege. If only Gunlaug had possessed 
a mother, perhaps then there had not been so much 
heartache on this day that should have been so 
bright and happy. There would then mot have been 
such unemding regret. 

Gunlaug found a few minutes alone before she 
was expected to leave her room. She sank down 
on a bench and sobbed till her whole body 
shook with the violence of her emotions. All thru 
the night, after she parted from Oyvind, she had 
lain awake, her eyes in a trance-like stare, fast- 
ened on the little dim oblong of her window. Never- 
more would she see Oyvind, nevermore would she 
know the sweetness of his companionship, never- 
more would she listen to the soothing melodies that 
he coaxed from his harp. Alas, like their young 




THE WHITE DAWN 


155 


lives, the harp lay broken where he had tossed it, 
down on the ledge of the cliff! 

Then she saw the sun rise. Would its bright 
rays reach down to the slimy depths where Oyvind 
lay? Would the tjern give evidence of again having 
closed over a living, breathing form? Had ever any 
human being felt as guilty as she did now while 
looking at the wonders of sunrise? She was the 
one who had arranged the tryst, she had been the 
least circumspect. Oh, if she had held him to a 
sensible friendship, then all would have been well, 
for prosaic old age would have made them quite satis- 
fied with these crumbs from love’s feast. Now it 
was too late. Now Oyvind was dead in the tjern, 
and she was alone with her grief and remorse. 

A sudden turmoil in the tun told her that the 
bridegroom was approaching. The musicians tuned 
their harps, the waiting-maids and serving-women 
crowded about, eagerly jostling into line, ready to 
serve the man of the hour, with his following. 

The harpers were marching towards the high- 
road, whence came the bridegroom, whom they must 
precede into the tun. The women with their offer- 
ings were waiting. All was joy and sparkling with 
anticipation, all were happy but Alfhild. She was 
pale and her eyes were puffed with weeping; but 
why should she care? Few, on such a day, would 
observe her, a half-old spinster. 


CHAPTER XX 


HOROLD was standing among the men, 
ready to welcome his future maag, when 
Guthorm came running towards him as fast 
as his ageing legs could move. He grasped Thorold’s 
arm and, to the astonishment of the lookers-on, drew 
him at full speed towards the cliff that rose from the 
tjern. 

Thorold made one desperate attempt to withdraw 
from the man’s grip, but one look into his face 
caused him to follow without a word. Something 
out of the ordinary was afoot. 

''What’s the matter?” he panted. 

"Guess you’ll have to change the bridegroom,” 
replied Guthorm, scarcely above a whisper. "Guess 
Gunstein is not the man who will wed your daughter 
this day!” By this time they stood above what had 
been the tjem, and Guthorm spreads his hands to 
indicate its whole surface. 

Thorold fell to his knees, mumbling prayers to 
Odin, to Thor and, from habit, making the sign of 
the cross. Instead of the black waters there lay be- 
neath him a billowing, green meadow, smiling under 
the dazzling sun I Such must have been the new earth 
as it sprang, a masterpiece, from the Maker’s hand.. 



THB WHITE DAWN 


157 


Thoro'ld clumsily rose from his feet, his rugged 
body shaking as the sturdy pine beneath the on- 
slaught of the stern north-wind. “What does it 
mean?” he asked, dazedly. “I don’t understand.” 

“It is as you see,” replied Guthorm. “This day 
the tjern has returned to its pristine condition. In- 
stead of the sullen water you see a smiling, green 
meadow. It means that Oyvind the Skald and not 
Gunstein the Strong leads Gunlaug to the altar, or 
else he breaks his word, Thorold the Strong, son of 
Sigvat Skaldaspiller.” 

“Never was it said of Thorold that he broke 
faith,” declared Thorold huskily, “I see Gunstein 
has arrived, but where is the young knave?” 

“If you mean Oyvind the Skald, he lies down 
there,” replied Guthorm with sudden dignity. 
“Down there, under the cliff where before was the 
rim of the tjern. He is waiting for me to bring him 
your answer.” 

“There can be only one,” said Thorold in the 
same husky tone that seemed to have become char- 
acteristic of him. “The feast must be changed from 
a wedding to that of a betrothal.” 

“That is so,” agreed Guthorm, “there must be at 
least three weeks for the bans.” 

It was not an easy thing for Thorold to inform 
Gunstein that the wedding could not take place. 
This was such an unheard of thing that he was sure 
it had never happened in all of Northland, perhaps 
not in all the world ! And yet he felt a sudden light- 


158 


THE WHITE DAWN 


ness of heart. It had not escaped him that Gunlaug 
was unhappy, and it was well that, without dishonor, 
he could withdraw his consent to the marriage. The 
tjern had given place to the meadow, as every one 
could see. Surely he could not fare right into the 
very teeth of the gods. And Guthorm, if necessary, 
could testify that he in this event had promised his 
daughter to the skald. 

Thorold’s first care was to stop the music. Then 
Gunstein knew at once that something had gone 
wrong. Gunlaug was dead, nothing less could war- 
rant any change in the plans. He was intensely 
alarmed when he alighted from his horse to answer 
Thorold’s greeting. 

“Good word, Gunstein, thanks for when last we 
met,” he said, still in the husky voice. 

“Good word, Thorold, and thanks in a like man- 
ner,” returned Gunstein, taking the proffered hand. 
“What is it that now flies in the air? Methinks 
something has befallen your house, Thorold !” 

Thorold shook his head. “Yes, so, yes, so, it 
has,” said he. “Strange things have come to pass 
in our day. So strange you’ll never believe them 
till your own eyes tell you the truth. Some weeks 
ago, Oyvind the Skald bade me fair for my daughter. 
I promised if Blackwater Tjern assumed its pristine 
condition before she became the wife to you, he 
should be her bridegroom. Now the tjern lies there 
a solid, green meadow. I must keep my word. Is it 
good word again, Gunstein?” 


THH WHITB DAWN 


159 


While Thorold was speaking, the hot blood rose 
to Gunstein’s face. His eyes flashed and the veins 
in his forehead became rigid and knotted. Slowly 
his right hand stole to the knife at his hip. The 
guests gathered around the two men. It looked as 
if blood would be spilled early in the day. 

'‘What old wives’ tale is this?” asked Gunstein 
wrathfully, knife in hand, approaching Thorold. 
“Dost expect me to believe ” 

Then the people round about felt sure the wed- 
ding would be changed to a funeral, for Thorold 
turned to his assailant with a snarl of speechless 
fury. That any one should voice a doubt of his 
word! 

“By the gods, Gunstein!” he cried, baring his 
knife. “Take these words back ! Wouldst call me a 
liar? Take them back, man, take them back, or by 
all I hold dear, I shall cut out your heart and give 
it to the Asas as an offering for a good season. I 
shall pay no fine for your blood, either! Take back 
your words !” His voice was getting hoarser with 
each utterance now, while from his rage his lips were 
flecked with foam. “Do you hear, Gunstein? I 
shall give your carcass to the carrion crows and I 
shall pay no fine for your bane!” 

Gunstein stood face to face with the angry man, 
drawn knife in hand, scarcely more rational than 
Thorold. The next moment would bring the bane 
of one. 

Among the onlookers there was one who, frozen 


160 


THB WHITE DAWN 


with horror, had read the berserker rage in the 
men’s faces and knew that one of them, at least, 
would pay the extreme penalty. It was Alfhild, 
daughter of Oystein Skule. She must do something, 
or this would become a funeral ! 

Without any more ado she sprang between the 
enraged men, her bowl held aloft. 

“Drink, then, Gunstein !” she cried, “Tell Thorold 
you never called him a liar. Tell him so ! Tell him, 
Gunstein, then drink !” 

Her cheeks were not pale now, her eyes no 
longer lustreless. Her cheeks glowed with the roses 
of twenty, her eyes were as two pools of shining 
light. The years had rolled away, and Gunstein saw 
once more the girl he had always admired even in 
the old days when he was a young man. 

With slow deliberation he replaced the knife in its 
sheath, then he turned to Thorold, who followed his 
example : 

“She is right,” he cried, giving Thorold his hand, 
“I did not mean to say that you lied, I never said it, 
really did not! Then you drew the knife, — well, 
Gunstein the Brave never feared the gleam of the 
naked blade, but, is it good word again?” 

The old men shook hands with good-natured 
raillery, then Gunstein turned to Alfhild and took 
the proffered bowl. When he handed it back he ac- 
companied it with a royal kiss on her still red cheek, 
while the whole company, who had gathered to see 
the fight, broke into wild laughter. 


THB WHITE DAWN 


161 


“Let them laugh, lass!” cried Gunstein. “When 
this tangle is unravelled I shall look you up and bid 
you fair as is proper in an honest carl. You shall 
see that he laughs best who laughs last 1” 

Alfhild looked frightened now and would have 
hidden behind the women, but Gunstein caught her 
by the hand and continued, regardless of who might 
listen : 

“You are far more to my liking than a young 
wench, not too old to be my daughter, anyway I May 
the Christians’ Devil fly away with me for the oaf 
I’ve been till this day!” 

Now that the guests had discovered that some- 
thing extraordinary had happened, a wild stampede 
followed to the edge of the cliffs above the tjern. 


6 


CHAPTER XXI 


HOROLD did not return to the cliff at once. 
He hastened to Gunlaug’s building to tell 
her the news. 

She sat as one stunned, ''Blackwater Tjern!” she 
mumbled, “how can it be?” 

“No one knows, my child,” he replied, “but 
strange things happen in our day. I promised Oy- 
vind, in the event of this, that he should have the 
privilege of bidding you fair, so now, if you want 
him, he is your man.” 

“But Oyvind is dead!” faltered Gunlaug. 

“Not dead,” replied her father. “He has but 
gone to make himself tidy. Soon he returns on his 
own beast, with his carls, as it behooves a man, on 
such an errand. Then he bids you fair as a free- 
born carl should. This, then, becomes a betrothal 
feast, not a wedding.” 

Gunlaug stepped to the open door. There, fring- 
ing the edge of the cliff, stood the guests, talking 
and gesticulating. She knew by their attitude, how- 
ever, that they spoke in whispers and as if fear was 
upon them. Over across the tun, towards the north, 
she saw Oyvind and Guthorm. They were mounted 
on Thorold’s horses and slowly rode out of the tun. 



THB WHITE DAWN 


163 


There was something in Oyvind’s appearance that 
frightened her. His face was deadly white, his eyes 
were glazed over, as if he were in a trance, and he 
trembled so he could scarcely sit in the saddle. 
What had happened to him? Had he died down 
there in the tjern and, all these things, were they 
but a delusion? Was it only an apparition she saw, 
in Oyvind’s form? Anything was possible after the 
tjern had been changed into a meadow! 

Suddenly an icy hand seemed to grip her heart. 
She remembered the words Oyvind uttered in the 
wedge-shaped shadow of the pine. Everything con- 
nected with Oyvind seemed filled with a sinister 
meaning. What dreadful temptations had met him 
that night, after she left him, in the gloom and lone- 
liness of ;the night? Had he sold his soul to the 
Christians’ Devil ? She would not let her father 
know her fear. With a cheerful smile she turned to 
him and thanked him. Clumsily he stroked her hair, 
under the silver crown. He was glad his little girl 
was going to be made happy. 

“We are so clumsy in fixing things for others,” 
he said, “now everything will be well.” 

Gunlaug’s eyes filled with tears. She felt she had 
misunderstood her father. He had always had a 
kind heart and had wished only her happiness. How 
she wished she had understood him earlier in life I 
“Come,” she called to Gunhild, “help me re- 
move the bridal dress; this is to be a betrothal-feast 
now.” 


164 


THB WHITE DAWN 


Her cousin, who had observed Gunlaug’s fear 
when she looked at Oyvind, was glad to see her 
throw it of¥ and entered gladly into her lighter 
spirit. 

“We’ll have to prepare a new wedding,” she 
clattered. “It is a fine thing that everybody, from 
far and near, are here this day, else it would be a 
seven year wonder to have the bans read first for 
you and Gunstein, then for you and Oyvind. The 
likes of that has never been heard in the whole of 
Olaf’s kingdom.” 


CHAPTER XXII 


RESSED in the gown she wore the day 
when she met Gunstein to pledge her troth, 
stood Gunlaug, with Gunhild at her side, 
looking at the meadow that occupied the mountain- 
bowl. Every faculty but the power of sight seemed 
to have left her. She possessed no volition, no fear, 
no joy in the miracle that had been performed. She 
simply stood there, looking at the waving grass, 
where last night, reflecting the heavens, had lain the 
tjern, black and sullen. 

She had feared that the people would stare, per- 
haps make remarks. Now she cared not, neither 
did they observe her. They stood together, huddled 
in small groups, whispering with awe-stricken faces 
of the miracle that had been performed in their 
midst. 


Some supernatural power had been at work. 
Odin, perhaps, or the White Christ. Perhaps Freya 
had performed the miracle. It had always been 
known among them that Freya sympathized with 
unfortunate lovers. But if so, then, why had she not 
taken a hand earlier? They all knew unhappy 
lovers ; yet, till now, no supernatral help had come 
to them. At the last Thing they had, in order to 



166 


THB WHITE DAWN 


safe-guard life and limb, promised to accept the 
White Christ, but in secret they had always sacrificed 
to the old gods. Was it for this that the Asas had 
restored the meadow? Was it a sign that the old 
gods were pleased with them ? Who knew these 
things? Who could know? 

These were the questions every one was asking 
either of his neighbor or of his own heart. Like the 
others, Gunlaug was busy finding an answer to them. 

Coming down the wide road, leading thru the 
gap to the meadow that had been the tjern, they saw 
a strange group. 

^‘They are the priest and the haut-boys,” said 
Ylve, who had just come down from the top of the 
cliffs. “Thorold is afraid the underearthlings have 
had something to do with the transformation of the 
tjern, so he has asked Father Anselmo to bless the 
land and withdraw it forever from their power.” 

“They think, then, that the underearthlings have 
had something to do with it ?” asked Gunlaug 
eagerly. She hoped they had. She was much less 
afraid of the underearthlings than of the Christians’ 
Devil. 

“Who knows?” remarked Gunhild. We live in 
an age of transition. All things are new. We know 
nothing of the White Christ, we know nothing of 
the Christians’ Devil!” 

Gunlaug’s face turned ashen. “Do you think the 
Christians’ Devil could have had anything to do with 
it?” she asked with trembling lips. 


THU WHITE DAWN 


167 


Gunhild smiled. “Not if we are to believe the 
good Father Anselmo,” she replied. “According to 
all I hear he is not apt to bring good to any one.” 

Now the crowd opened to admit the priest and 
the haut-boys. 

Father Anselmo came up to where Thorold and 
his daughter stood. 

“Good word, Thorold,” said the priest, taking 
him by the hand. “May the Holy Mother and all 
the Saints bless thee and keep thee with thy house! 
Strange things have this day befallen thee and 
thine.” 

“Very strange, holy father,” replied Thorold. 
“But we look to you to help us. As you see, the 
tjern has been transformed, but by whose agency, I 
know not. If it is to be of service to mankind it 
must be made safe, and so I sent for you that you 
may sprinkle the ground with holy water and thus 
make it safe under foot. We look to you to bless it, 
so it will bring forth wholesome fruit and grain, too, 
and not fulsome poisons.” 

It was a long speech for Thorold, who was more 
at home driving his men or using the terse language 
of the long-boat than in the polished speech of those 
who converse with mien of learning. He had been 
stirred to the depths of his nature, and; this had 
loosened his tongue. He had decided, too, that if 
the priest could not help here, he’d have an (excel- 
lent excuse for not adhering too closely to the new 
tenets of faith. 


168 


THB WHITE DAWN 


Now began a scramble for the shore of what had 
been the beach of the tjern, by those who had re- 
mained on the cliffs. Then, standing in solemn rows, 
the men removed their hats and the service began. 
Father Anselmo, the haut-boys swinging a censer, 
chanted a Kyrie. Then, after a lengthy prayer, he 
took up a piece of clod and blessed it, then he sprin- 
kled it with holy water. After this he stretched out 
his arms in a gesture including the entire surface of 
the tjern and invoked the blessings of the Christ 
and all the Saints, praying that it might become safe 
under foot, that it might produce wholesome food 
for man and beast. 

After pronouncing a benedicite over the bowed 
heads of the awe-stricken people, he walked boldly 
out on the \yold, while one after another of the 
guests, haltingly, but with more bravery at every 
step, followed. They looked back, but no water 
came bubbling up in their steps. Evidently the 
ground was solid beneath their feet. One doubting 
Thomas dug a hole in the soft, black earth and 
found it firm. It was a wonder what they could do, 
the servants of the White Christ. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


S it behooves a man about to bid a maiden 
fair, Oyvind returned on his own horse, with 
his own carls. He had urged his aunt to 
accompany him, too, but in vain. 

“Wait till the day you are wed, boy,” she told 
him, tears running down her cheeks, for during the 
days Oyvind had been so unhappy she had learned 
that /she loved him with a tenderness of which she 
had been unaware. 

It was two and twenty years ago now since she 
had carried him across the mountains in her apron. 
He had been a tiny infant then, and she had always 
cared for him. A small hut under the mountain had 
given her shelter, and it had always been a marvel 
to the neighbors the way she had forged ahead. In 
some way she found means to build a good little 
house and appropriate outbuildings. Then she grad- 
ually [acquired the possession of two cows and a 
respectable flock of goats and sheep. But this was 
not all. She had been able to hire men who cleared 
enough land so she raised her needed corn and cut 
the hay for her winter use. 

True, his aunt had always been a good worker, 
always securing the best pay for her labor, but even 



170 


THE WHITE DAWN 


that failed to explain her success. Oyvind had al- 
ways been well-clad and well-fed. Not only that, but 
his aunt could read and she taught him the art from 
a book she had brought with her in the apron beside 
the babe. It was said to have been a testament 
taken into the North by St. Ansgar himself, that 
Oyvind’s aunt came from the land of the Danes, 
lying far to the south and over the sea. But it was 
only a surmise, and on this question, as well as on 
all others, she kept her own council. 

Dong before Oyvind had become a man the 
people of Lesje had accepted him and his aunt, with- 
out any questions, as one of themselves. Her will- 
ing hands and dependability made a big place for 
her, and as he grew into manhood, Oyvind’s harp 
made a way for him into people’s hearts. 

The guests stood gathered in groups, discussing 
this thing that had befallen them that day, when 
Thorold beckoned to Oyvind. 

suppose you don’t know how this strange 
thing came to pass,” he said, as they walked down 
to the cliff, ‘'neither do I ask any questions. I am 
not satisfied with that ceremony, tho it is good as far 
as it went. Methinks the old gods expect to look 
after a Viking and a Viking’s daughter, I want them 
to have a share in this.” 

Oyvind nodded and they clambered down the 
cliff till they stood on the sandy line that rimmed the 
meadow. Thorold spoke again: 

“Det us invoke the aid of the Asa-gods,” he said. 


THE WHITE DAWN 


171 


Then he lifted his voice and asked the aid of 
Odin, of Thor, of Frey, and of Frey a, who is cred- 
ited with having in hand the most intimate affairs 
of men. Then he ended by asking the blessings of 
the All-father, the great spirit who ruled over all 
and who was neither Odin nor Thor nor any of the 
other gods to whom they gave a name. It was sel- 
dom the ,old Vikings felt any occasion sufficiently 
pressing to call upon the All-father. 

The prayers concluded, Thorold turned to Oy- 
vind and gave him his fire-iron. 

“Since this is your property,’’ he said, “there is 
none nearer to do what must next be done. Take 
this and throw it till you have thrown it across the 
entire meadow. That done, neither underearthlings, 
nor field-folk, nor njzikken, who lives in the water- 
falls, can harm your holdings nor turn them back 
into water. But beware you don’t lose the iron!” 

Oyvind did as he was told. When Thorold re- 
ceived the iron again he went on with his instructions : 

“Tonight, when all is still, I shall find my fattest 
goat and, on the sacrificial stone, I shall offer her to 
the Asas. Thorold is too old now to give up the 
ancient gods, but this time is the last when I shall 
intercede with them for your happiness and for the 
house you are about to set. Therefore take you 
your fattest goat, as well, and follow my example. 
Offer the best in your flock to the Asas.” 

Then they clasped hands. It was with a new 
feeling of brotherhood they walked to the edge of 


172 


THB WHITE DAWN 


the meadow into the gap. Here they proceeded 
along the winding path till they reached Thorold’s 
tun. In the guest-hall were drinking and much talk. 
The torches had been lighted and the feast was 
spread. They had not been missed. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


STIFF bowl of mead gave Oyvind back 
some of his vigor, and with proud bearing 
he escorted Gunlaug to the guest-hall. Here 
loud cries of acclaim greeted them. Preparations 
were on for seating the guests. The tables fairly 
groaned under the trenchers of meat and bread and 
cakes, under the great bowls that stood in two reg- 
ular rows along each side of the table. The conver- 
sation was slack. Everybody was standing, silently 
hoping to be among the first to be asked to table. 

Followed by the young couple and Gunhild, 
Thorold strode majestically to the high-seat, where 
they stood waiting for the guests, whom the maids, 
with much labor, managed to bring to their places 
at table. Gunstein occupied the place next to Oy- 
vind, and opposite, no longer a serving-woman, sat 
Alfhild. 

“Good word, Gunstein,” said Thorold, giving him 
his hand, “I look to you to explain the situation, so 
none of our friends can misunderstand us this day.” 

Gunstein took a sip of ale, rose to his feet, cleared 
his throat, then began: 

“Good word, my friends! You came here to see, 
that is to witness quite a different ceremony, but. 



174 


THB WHITB DAWN 


hm, hm,, all things considered, all things are for the 
best. Hm, hm. Yes, it is so. I have found, for a 
long time, that is, hm, hm, I have found that a man’s 
mate should not be too far from him in point of 
years. Hm, hm. He is apt to like the rosy cheeks, 
hm, hm, the bright eyes, but he forgets, hm, forgets 
that his, that is, hm, hm, that he is faded, and, 
hm, hm, he is not apt to be much interesting, hm hm, 
to a girl of twenty. 

“Now I have, hm, hm, found a mate quite suited 
to me in every way, hm, hm, and we’ll let the young 
mate together as the gods, hm, hm, as the dear Lord 
intended they should, hm, hm. Not that Alfhild, 
daughter of Oystein vSkule, is old, right is she, just 
right for me, a man, hm, hm, in my best years. Yes, 
that’s it, hm, hm. So this is a double feast, hm, hm, 
the betrothal of Oy\dnd the Skald, hm, hm,, and 
Gunlaug, daughter of Thorold the Strong, son of 
Sigvat Skaldaspiller, hm, hm, yes. And also of 
Gunstein, called the Brave, and, hm, hm, Alfhild, 
daughter of Oystein Skule, hm, hm. Good word 
again, friends, and skaal, shame on him who doesn’t 
drink, hm, hm !” 

Furiously mopping his pink face and bald pate, 
Gunstein seated himself, amid the merry uproar from 
the gpiests, as they raised their drinking-horns and 
shouted their approval. 

Then Thorold rose and with proper show of dig- 
nity proposed another skaal for the two couples. 
Needless to relate, the skaal was drunk. The North- 


^ the white dawn 175 

men had been true neither to their nature nor their 
traditions had they refused. 

With rosy cheeks and shining eyes Gunlaug and 
Oyvind sat together. How wonderfully everything 
had turned out for them! Gunlaug made a little 
prayer to the White Christ and to his Holy Mother. 
Then she made a half-hearted apology to Freya. 
Oh, could she but know whence came her aid! 

The evening passed merrily with music, singing, 
wrestling, and the many sports, dear to the North- 
man’s heart. Then the candles were lighted in the 
reception-hall and the dance began. It was the same 
hall, the same scene almost, from which they had 
stolen to their first tryst, yet, how different ! Instead 
of Oyvind playing for the old men, there were Attar 
Svarte and Sigvat Skald. Instead of Gunstein drink- 
ing with the older men, he was now dancing with the 
young maidens. 

Instead of the roaring fires on the hearth there 
were banks of leaves and flowers, branches of the 
spruce, the pine, the birch and the mountain ash. 
Instead of finding it necessary to sneak away they 
could now walk out boldly, side by side, for they 
were “promised” and no one dared gossip. 

“I don’t seem to have seen you all day,” mur- 
mured Oyvind in the dance. “Let us go down to 
the ledge from all this crowd and noise.” 

Gunlaug felt he was something of a stranger, since 
he had returned to her as from the dead, and wel- 
^:omed the suggestion. 


176 


THE WHITE DAWN 


Standing on the ledge, where the night before they 
had parted, he pressed her in his arms. “You seem so 
far away from me, among all those people !” he com- 
plained. “It seems as if they had stolen you from me.” 

“I have struggled with the same feeling about 
you,” she replied; “but now everything is well. You 
have returned to me.” 

She was glad they were alone together. Now 
she would ask him why he had looked so strange 
that morning. Why the terror she had seen in his 
every feature, why the glazed look about his eyes. 
But something, a strange, invisible power held her 
back. She sighed as she stood beside him, both 
silent. Life had suddenly lost much of its charm. 
A thick veil seemed to have been interposed between 
her and Oyvind, a veil she dared not stretch her 
hand to remove. 

She walked away from him and her foot touched 
a ringing object. It was the poor, broken remains 
of Oyvind’s harp. She lifted it up into the full light 
of the moon. 

“You must mend it!” she cried. 

Tenderly he took it from her and began to fit the 
broken parts together. 

“Yes,” he murmured, “I must mend it. I must 
play ” 

He did not finish his sentence, but stood, with 
dilated eyes, staring across the meadow, towards the 
mountain on the west, where a narrow strip of water 
hugged its side. 


THB WHITE DAWN 


177 


“I — must go — he mumbled with stiffening 
lips, “I must — go — over there !” 

She would have asked him what he heard, what 
he saw, but there was that about him which forbade 
any question. So she went from him. She climbed 
the cliffs behind them, crossed the tun and entered 
the reception-hall. Here she found a dark corner 
where she gave herself up to gloomy thoughts. 

What had happened to Oyvind? Had he been 
mountain-taken, or had he done as he threatened 
that night in the shadow of the pine, had he sold his 
soul to the Christians’ Devil? 

A young carl invited her to dance, and her atti- 
tude brought a vague question to him. Had Gun- 
laug taken too much of the mead that in such tor- 
rential floods ran down their throats? But, no, she 
was too fine in every fibre of her being for that. 
Whatever mattered, however, he dared not ask, there 
was something about her that forbade the question. 

Time passed, it seemed hours, till at last she 
could no longer endure the suspense. With flying 
feet she crossed the tun, adroitly descended to the 
bottom and soon stood on the meadow that was the 
transformed tjem. It was across there, to the moun- 
tain, he had gone. She would seek him there. She 
ran on. Soon the mountain threw its inky shadow 
over her. Close to its side she saw the gleam of 
water. Was the tjern to resume its sway? But, no. 
Underfoot the ground was solid. 

She stopped suddenly. At the very edge of the 


178 


THE WHITE DAWN 


water, hugging the mountain-wall, lay a human form. 
She knew it was Oyvind. He lay with his face 
buried in one arm, his breath coming in quick, sob- 
like gasps. His free hand was clawing the earth, 
sending up great tufts of roots and soil into the air 
while he muttered, deep-throatedly, in an unnatural 
voice 

“Curse the full moon ! Curse it ! Always I 

must obey. May all the curses of the gods fall on it ! 
Always I must go ! Always obey !’^ 

“Oyvind!” cried Gunlaug, wildly kneeling before 
the prostrate form, and put her hand on his heated 
forehead. 

With a snarl as that from a wild beast he sprang 
to his feet, trembling like some trapped, wild thing, 
crouching down as if ready for a spring. His jaw 
dropped, showing a double row of white teeth, his 
eyes blazed like living coals. 

She stepped back from him, half dead from ter- 
ror, '’“Oyvind.” She whispered his name now, a 
deadly fear stifling her voice. 

“Is it you, Gunlaug?” he cried, intense relief in 
his voice, and caught her to him with a vehem- 
ence that frightened her still more. There was some- 
thing in his movements, in his voice, in his very 
touch that filled her with nameless dread. He 
seemed full of an evil spirit or else he had changed 
into something resembling a wild animal. Gunlaug 
did not know what to think. Neither did she stop 
to talk. 


THB WHITE DAWN 


179 


She wrenched herself out of his arms and, in 
wild flight, she set out across the meadow. With a 
loud intake of breath he followed. Now came on a 
desperate race. She stumbled ahead, voiceless, de- 
void of all feeling except that of intense fear, while 
he came racing, close behind her. It was not Oyvind 
who pursued her now, it was a demon, a beast. 

The next moment he would overtake her, she 
knew it. He would sink dreadful fangs into her 
tender flesh or tear her with his horrible claws. She 
was almost across the meadow, back into the moon- 
light now. She dared not look back at what fol- 
lowed her lest the sight deprive her of reason. On 
the sandy strip, at the edge of the meadow, she fell, 
headlong, among the ferns that grew under the over- 
hanging cliffs, where had been the side of the tjern. 

Was this the end? she wondered, shuddering. 
Perhaps it would be better to die now than to live 
her life under a curse, for this it must be. She had 
heard of the werewolf, now Oyvind had been turned 
into one. She could not pray. All her faith in a 
Greater Being was lost. With her face hidden in 
her arms, beneath her, she lay, waiting for the blow. 

The next moment Oyvind was kneeling beside 
her, his arms around her shoulders. He picked her 
up gently and laid her head on his breast. 

“Gunlaug, dearest, why did you come?” he cried 
in a broken voice, but she was too spent to reply. 
A sudden fit of trembling seized her and she fainted 
in his arms. 


180 


THE WHITE DAWN 


“Oh, my poor Gunlaiig!’^ he murmured, his hot 
tears falling on her face, “could I but die ! But I 
must live, live and keep the promise, or even worse 
things will befall !” 


CHAPTER XXV 


UMMER was passing. Gunstein and Alfhild 
had been married for weeks, and yet no 
bans had been pronounced for Oyvind and 
Gunlaug. For this there was one apparent reason. 
Oyvind^s patrimony, having obligingly come up from 
the tjern, was devoid of buildings. He unflinchingly 
set himself the task of raising proper houses, sO' he 
and his bride might enter upon their holdings in a 
manner befitting proper land-owners. So far it was 
well, but Gunlaug knew he was in no hurry to finish 
his work, that he was not eager to consummate his 
happiness. 

Gunlaug shed many tears in the solitude of her 
chamber. She could not understand what had come 
over Oyvind. Not that he was amiss in his atten- 
tions to her, but there was something about him so 
new and strange. Times were when such a dreadful 
expression came into his face, such a far-away look 
crept into his eyes that she felt he saw something 
which was hidden from her. She observed, too, that 
he always avoided her when the moon was full, and 
she, remembering her experience on the evening of 
their betrothal, respected his attitude. 

Gunlaug often went with her maids to cut the 




182 


THU WHITE DAWN 


grass among the rocks, tucked in where the men 
were unable to reach it with their scythes, or to strip 
the leaves from the birch for winter fodder. Here 
she was the merriest of them all, but Gunhild knew 
something lay heavy on the girl’s heart, and she 
prayed to the Holy Mother and all the gods to 
remove whatever sorrow had come to her. 

Aided by a great number of “timber-men,” Oy- 
vind was building up his holdings. He hiad sold his 
own homestead, except the house and a small patch 
of land around it. This gave him means by which 
he bought the needed articles to complete his work. 
He cut the pines along the tops of the cliffs, which 
not only gave him the timber he needed, but allowed 
the sun to shine on the meadow for a much longer 
time, changing the place from one of gloom to one 
of light and sunshine. 

Gradually the buildings rose around the circular 
tun, the living houses, the brewery, bakery, reception 
and guest halls, larder, drenge-quarter and the kiln 
for drying the malt. Nor was this all. When the 
buildings were all completed Oyvind began, with, 
crowbars, to break up the meadow for his next 
year’s fields. This Gunlaug knew was but a pretext 
for putting off the wedding. But why? Oyvind still 
loved her. He was more assiduous in his attentions 
than ever, but a new note had crept in. He seemed 
actuated by a wild, unreasoning jealousy, a strange 
ferociousness in his manners and a constant fear lest 
he should lose her. How could she conciliate these 


THB WHITE DAWN 


183 


conflicting attitudes? Was he, after all, a change- 
ling, sent to her from the mountain, and not Oyvind, 
she wondered. 

The day broke when Oyvind, accompanied by his 
future father-in-law, went to see the priest. As was 
usual, the older man acted as spokesman. Clearing 
his throat he began : 

“We come, father, to ask you to pronounce the 
bans for the nuptials of my daughter and this man,” 
he said. “It should be said for the first time next 
Sunday.” 

“Just so,” returned the priest, picking up a quill 
from a neat pile on the table beside him. “Your 
daughter’s name ?” 

“Gunlaug, daughter of Thorold the Strong, son 
of Sigvat Skaldaspiller,” answered Thorold proudly. 

“And that of the young man?” He nodded to- 
wards Oyvind. 

“Oyvind the Skald,” replied Thorold. 

Father Anselmo wrote the name, then he looked 
up, the pen still poised over the parchment. “Yes?” 
It was a question. 

“That is all,” said Oyvind. 

“Is it not enough?” asked Thorold, uneasily. 

The priest shook his head. “I must know his 
father’s name,” he replied. 

Thorold grumbled. “That is bad,” he muttered, 
“I never dreamed but you knew your father’s 
name !” 

“And I never dreamed it would make any dif- 


184 


THE WHITE DAWN 


ference,” returned Oyvind, ‘^since to my knowledge 
I’ve never set eyes on him.” 

“We must ask your aunt what your father was 
called,” said Thorold a little later, as they were 
leaving the priest’s house. “She brought you here, 
she’ll know.” 

Thorold had reckoned without his host. The 
aunt simply threw her apron over her face and sat 
silently rocking to and fro. Oyvind motioned his 
guest to come outside. 

“We can do nothing with her when she is like 
that,” he said. “If it is quite necessary that I should 
know my father’s name, I best go over the moun- 
tain. I may start tomorrow.” 

“Wait a few days,” said Thorold, “she may give 
in. The way across the mountains is severe, time is 
precious, and there is much to be done. Winter is 
coming on. Bide a few days.” 


CHAPTER XXVI 


His 


T was late that night when Father Anselmo 
heard a rap at his study door. Two sha- 
dowy figures stood on the threshold. For a 
considerable time he was closeted with them. Then 
he let them out by a side door. 

It was customary in the North that the whole 
population from far and near attended divine ser- 
vice. It was Sunday, and Oyvind sat in his usual 
seat on the men’s side. From where he sat he could 
catch an occasional glimpse of Gunlaug, according 
as they sat or stood during the service. He had not 
followed the utterances of the priest very closely, but 
now* he sat up as if awakened to sudden life. 

‘T now pronounce, for the first time, the bans for 
Oyvind the Skald, son of Guthorm of Skallet, and 
Gunlaug, daughter of Thorold the Strong, son of 
Sigvat Skaldaspiller.” This was what he heard. 
“Those who know any reason why this marriage 
should not be consummated, now speak or forever 
hold your peace!” 

Oyvind did not observe the astonished look Gun- 
laug cast at him, nor the curious glances that were 
leveled at him by the others. He sat back in his 
pew, unnerved. Guthorm was his father, then? He 



186 


THE WHITE DAWN 


knew now the reason for the peculiar tenderness 
Guthorm had always shown in his attitude towards 
him. He knew, too, that he had, for years, been 
away from his home and, in his younger days., 
had led more than one Viking-raid, that he had fol- 
lowed the Franks on an expedition all the way to 
Jorsala. He had lived for some time on the other 
side of the mountain. He remembered now that 
Guthorm had told him of the people who lived there. 
But why had he not sooner acknowledged his son? 

He sat, after the first wave of surprise had 
passed, strangely glad that he had a father. Glad 
that it was Guthorm. He remembered the night he 
had fingered the harp, when he was punished and 
Guthorm came to him. He recalled the day in the 
forest, and again that midsummer day when Guth- 
orm came to him just as he had returned tO' con- 
sciousness where had been the edge of the tjern. 
How kind Guthorm had been that morning and how 
dearly he had needed that kindness ! He shuddered 
as he recalled his terror when he sat gazing at the 
meadow which, over night, had come to take the 
place of the tjern. 

Little penetrated thru to Oyvind’s consciousness 
that morning. He sat occupied with that which was 
within. Memories, half-forgotten incidents of his 
childhood came to him in a new light. Incidents 
never understood stared him in the face with a new 
and sudden meaning. His aunt had received aid 
from some one. He knew now, it was from Guth- 


THB WHITE DAWN 


187 


orm, and he knew why. Again the question, Why 
had Guthorm kept still so long? 

Oyvind, like the rest, usually stayed after church 
to greet friends and, lately, to go home with Thorold 
and Gunlaug. But that day he stole out before any 
of the others and walked straight home. He did not 
wish to speak to his aunt on the subject, that would 
be useless. He merely wanted to escape the people’s 
curiosity. 

He found his aunt silent and inscrutable as usual. 
She set a trencher of dried goats’ flesh before him, 
with bread and a bowl of ale. Then she seated her- 
self on a corner of the fire-place and began reading 
the Testament she had brought with her across the 
mountain. 

After his meal he left the house and walked up 
the narrow path leading from the dim forest to the 
bright light of the mountain-top. 

He was not of Lesje then? His home lay be- 
yond the mountains whose tops he saw glistening 
above the pines on the opposite, side of the valley. 
He stood gazing far, over the buildings, over the 
trees on the mountain side with the great gap. What 
must it mean to know, to have seen what lay be- 
yond? His father knew, so did his mother. 

Then his gaze stiffened. His mother? Had he a 
mother ? If so, why had he not been with her as 
other boys had been with their mothers ? If she was 
alive, why had he not seen her? He remembered 
his bdautiful dream as a child, always his mother 


188 


THB WHITE DAWN 


was coming to him. He was always waiting a little 
while, a day, sometimes he felt sure she would ar- 
rive within a week. She would come and take him 
to her breast and love him. He was always longing 
to be loved. Then the radiant dream had gradually 
faded, but now it stood with sudden clearness before 
him, pointing out a real loss. 

Where was ,she? Why had they not told him 
anything about his mother? He would ask his 
father these questions, and upon this answer should 
depend whether he, who had been so tardily ac- 
knowledged Guthorm’s son, would accept the title 
or throw it back in his father’s teeth. But he 
would not seek Guthorm that day. He wanted to 
be alone. 

Oyvind, however, proposed, while a greater power 
disposed. He seated himself on a boulder lying on a 
wide shelf on the mountain side. Here he had a fine 
view over the valley as it lay below him with its 
winding stream, close-built homesteads, in the tender 
green aftermath and fields of oats and barley, rich 
and yellow, waiting for the sickle. 

Then he saw a man toiling upward to where he 
sat. It required no second glance to see that it was 
Guthorm. 

“Good day and thanks for when last we met,” 
said Guthorm, holding out his hand. 

“Good day and thanks to you in a like manner,” 
returned Oyvind, slowly, folding his arms across his 
breast. 


THB WHITE DAWN 


189 


Giithorm drew his hand across his eyes as if he 
wished to hide the sight of this discourtesy. 

“Little did I think the son I this day have ac- 
knowledged would treat me thus,” he complained. 

“I wish a brace of questions answered before I 
can ;know whether to take your hand or not,” re- 
plied Oyvind. 

“Ask them,” invited Guthorm. 

“You say today I'm your son. That is well. 
But if I am your son today, the same thing was true 
when I was a child. Why did you not acknowledge 
me sooner? You gave me a very lonely childhood.” 

“Reason have you in your asking,” returned Gu- 
thorm. “If I may sit with you I will tell you my story.” 

Guthorm was still agile, and with a spring he 
landed on the broad top of the boulder beside his son. 

“To begin with, I didn’t know you were in exist- 
ence, didn’t know you were expected, till your aunt 
brought you. She carried you across the mountain, 
thru yonder gap, in her apron. You were about five 
days old then, as many days as she had used in cross- 
ing. She was comparatively young, and I a free-carl. 
Of course, in those days, as in these, the good people 
talked. I could do more for her in her own little 
home than if she had come to me and I had acknowl- 
edged you my son. 

“I always had in mind that sometime I should do 
this, but I never recognized the need till your aunt 
came, late at night, and told me the bans could not 
be read till the priest knew your father’s name. Late 


190 


THB WHITE DAWN 


as it was that night, we trudged to Father Anselmo’s 
house, and I told him. I meant to tell you, so you 
would be prepared for what was coming, but when 
I came you were not here. Are you answered?” 

“So far, good,” replied Oyvind. “The next ques- 
tion is about my mother. Where is she? I heard 
you say you were a free-carl when my aunt brought 
me. Were you then not my mother’s husband?” 

Guthorm set his jaw and a sudden flame shot into 
his eyes, gradually changing to a soft mist. 

“Your mother, lad, is no more,” he returned 
huskily. “She passed into the beyond when she gave 
your budding life to the world. Oh, lad, it Is be- 
cause of your mother that I believe the story of the 
Wonderful White Christ and His Virgin Mother. 
It must be true — surely she has been blessed all 
these years, while I !” 

Here he paused, struggling with his tears, look- 
ing into the hazy distance as if searching for some- 
thing now lost to view. 

“Were you married to my mother?” 

It came as a judgment, not as a question. 

Guthorm sat for a moment, staring before him. 
“Her father refused to give her to me !” he cried 
bitterly. “Then I left, hoping to find some trusty 
carls that would help me take her away from him 
and across the mountains. I wanted to make her 
my wife, as we were sure Freya had ordained, for we 
knew very little about the White Christ then. It was 
before Olaf brought from England the new learning 


THU WHITE DAWN 


191 


which now, with fire and sword, he compels us to 
accept. I, for one, would accept it without fear of 
an earthly ruler.” 

“You think, then, this is the true God?” asked 
Oyvind with a touch of awe in his manner. 

“Yes,” cried Guthorm, “I think the White Christ 
is the true God!” — They sat in silence for a while. 
Then Oyvind held his hand towards the older man. 

“Good word, my father,” he said. “Perhaps I 
was undutiful not to take your hands sooner. Had 
this happened a year ago I should perhaps not have 
taken it at all; I know more of life now, I under- 
stand your position as I never could have grasped it 
before. I think it was for the best that you waited.” 

Guthorm returned the pressure of his son’s hand, 
and with his rough leather sleeve wiped a tear from 
his face. 

“This atones for much,” he said brokenly. “But 
don’t think I never intended doing something for 
you. Ever since you arrived, besides giving your 
aunt a helping hand, I have saved up, so now I can 
give you a creditable flock of sheep and goats and 
some fine cattle, too, my boy. It will be fine. For 
the first time in more than twenty years there’ll be 
a table under which I can put my feet, except up 
there in Skallet, and feel at home.” 

Oyvind nodded and Guthorm continued: 

“And the grandchildren now, think of them I” 
He accompanied this with a hearty blow on Oyvind’s 
shoulder, but the young man did not respond to his 


192 


THB WHITE DAWN 


humor. Instead, his face grew crimson, then gray, 
and he changed the topic of conversation. 

“Shall we tell Thorold your story?” he asked. 

“Why not?” returned Guthorm, who had been 
keenly observing the younger man. “You don’t 
seem happy enough for a prospective bridegroom; 
as man to man, tell me, lad. Perhaps my eyes can 
see where to yours things are obscure.” 

Oyvind made no reply, but lightly jumped down- 
ward from rock to rock until he stood on the path 
at the foot of the mountain. Guthorm followed, 
but with due respect for his more aged bones. 

“Say nothing more to me about this, father,” he 
begged, giving the elder man his hand. “And be- 
lieve me, no human being can understand my troubles, 
no human being can help me bear my burden. None 
can undo what has already been entered on the re- 
cording scroll of a man’s life.” 

Guthorm pressed the proffered hand. “It shall 
be as you wish,” he .assured Oyvind. “Far be it 
from me to seek entrance into your hidden world, 
but remember this thing, my lad, if you ever must 
speak of that which now lies in your breast, come to 
your father, boy, come to me!” 

A film gathered over the young man’s bright 
eyes, a tremor edged his mobile lips. 

“Thanks shall you have, my father,” he replied. 
“It will always be a joy for me to remember this. 
From now on I realize that, of all men, you are 
closest to me.” 


CHAPTER XXVII 


B HE wedding day rose clear and calm with a 
tang of autumn in the air. Again friends 
and relatives came from far and near to show 
their respect to the house of Thorold the Strong, 
son of Sigvat Skaldaspiller. The story of the trans- 
formed tjern had reached to the utmost confines of 
the land and was rapidly passed into a legend, which is 
yet to be told as long as the Northman has a language. 

Again Gunlaug had been decked in her wedding 
finery, again her maidens were gathering about her, 
chatting like magpies. Weddings were always 
fraught with great possibilities. They always stimu- 
lated the young men to seek their mates among the 
maidens who, like flies on a sunny day, gathered 
about a bride. Almost anything might find its in- 
ception at a wedding. 

Never had “sendings” been so large and numer- 
ous, never bridal gifts so large and costly. Guthorm 
had added his portion to Oyvind’s earthly goods in 
the shape of a small herd of cattle and about a half- 
hundred sheep and goats. Now Oyvind, tho far from 
wealthy, was able to “set foot under his own table” 
as a full-fledged bonde. 

Gunlaug was not losing out in giving up the 

7 


194 


THB WHITE DAWN 


finery the maidens had so lamented. Guthorm, too, 
had been a wide-faring Viking and possessed stores 
of jewelry and silken robes. But Gunlaug seemed 
oblivious of all this, evidently nursing gloomy 
thoughts, so it seemed to Gunhild, and she en- 
couraged the maids in their chatter. She would 
draw their attention away from the bride’s pale 
cheeks and heavy eyes. 

Gunlaug was torn between an ecstatic happiness 
and a benumbing fear. Soon they would stand be- 
fore the priest, he to make them husband and wife. 
Why could she not throw off this load? Why this 
stiffening dread that robbed her happiness of its per- 
fect fruition? Why did she on this day leap in sud- 
den reaction from boundless happiness to shivering 
despair? What was this undefined, deadly some- 
thing, like a slimy serpent, ready to spring from, 
she knew not where? 

Was Oyvind happy? The blood receded in a 
sudden stream to her heart as she recalled the dread- 
ful experience on the eve of their betrothal. The 
habitually haunted expression of his face and the 
look of fear in his eyes when she brought him his 
harp, asking that he mend it so she could hear it 
sing, filled her with dread. Still the harp was broken, 
tucked deep into her massive chest, among the linen. 

It all dated from the night when the tjem was 
transformed. Again she asked herself the agonizing 
question, Had he sold his soul to the Christians’ 
Devil? If so, she wished he’d tell her. She would 


THB WHITE DAWN 


195 


gladly give him up if it only would bring back his 
happiness. 

Music in the tun proclaimed Oyvind’s coming. 
With her hand on Gunhild’s arm she went to the 
door. Here she was met by her father, who escorted 
her to the bridegroom, just riding into the tun, 
where he and his men would be regaled with mead 
and honey-cakes. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


IKE her wedding day, Gunlaug’s married life 
was a constant mixture of sorrow and glad- 
ness. Long periods of happiness, inter- 
spersed with sudden realization of the spectre that 
stalked between them, was her lot. At times, thru 
Oyvind, evidence came to her of something working 
in the dark, something in the nature of nauseating 
filth. Then for days and weeks he would work 
among his men, all seemingly well with him. But 
she learned to know that after every such period 
Oyvind would become wide-eyed and tight-lipped, 
on the next night of the full moon he would disap- 
pear into the forest, perhaps into the mountain. 
Gunlaug never knew. 

After her dreadful experience in the summer she 
never tried to peep into Oyvind’s secret. Where 
would it all end? was the question she always asked 
herself, and it was always left unanswered. It was 
not a cheerful home they made, these two. Never 
did they attend any of the festive meetings, so com- 
mon in their day. No more did the tones of the 
skald’s harp or of his \dbrant voice fill the guest-hall. 

Winter came. The northern winter is always in- 
teresting, with its snow and glitter, with the clear 



THE WHITE DAWN 


197 


moonlight and the dancing colors of the Northern 
lights, with the glory of the Northern constellations. 
It was pleasant in the great kitchen, the blaze from 
the logs weaving its fantastically changing fret-work 
over the white-scrubbed floor. In a semi-circle 
around the fire sat the two young people with their 
servants and retainers around them. Every one was 
busy. The maids, with their mistress, were always 
working with the wool, the men with other materials, 
a piece of spruce or birch from which they fashioned 
some utensil, or a piece of leather from which they 
were engaged in making a leather jerkin, a shoe, or 
a bit of harness. 

But they were not a silent group, such as one 
might picture busy workers. Laughter and repartee, 
song and story enlivened every moment till the long 
evening was over and each was ready tO' seek rest. 
It was an age long antedating that of the printed 
page, when one who could read was regarded as a 
small Wonder. For this reason nearly every one 
cultivated his talent of telling stories. Those told 
around Oyvind’s fire-place were of all kinds, from 
the tales of the wild Vikings to those centering about 
the new God. 

Gunlaug observed that her husband took a lively 
part in the story-telling, till someone introduced a 
tale of the underearthlings or the Christians’ Devil. 
Then he sought the darkest corner and gloomed 
apart from the rest till bed-time. 

One night he was especially silent, and Gunlaug 


198 


THB WHITE DAWN 


stole out into the open. It was the time of the full 
moon, and he was abnormally worried and sullen at 
that period. It was a wonderful world into which 
she tramped. All about her, like a soft, white blan- 
ket, lay the new-fallen snow. The mountains stood 
tall and shining around the basin except where, 
along the sides, down to their very feet, stood pines, 
black and mystic in the dazzling light. 

She stopped on the ledge that had been their 
trysting-place. Under her eyes stretched the un- 
trodden snow till it ended in the strip of water, hug- 
ging the mountain wall, now protected by a thick 
sheet of ice. Placid and homelike lay the buildings 
below, the chimneys belching out the thick smoke, 
the windows ruddy from the blazing logs within. 
It was in such moments as these, alone with nature, 
that Gunlaug could entertain the faintest hope of an 
ultimate happiness. 

There was something which, in its proper time, 
would enter into their joined lives, and Gunlaug 
hoped it would smooth out the dreadful fear and 
sorrow under which her husband moved. Their home 
would soon be shared by another being, flesh of 
their flesh, a child that, but for the timely transforma- 
tion of the tjern, must have been fathered by Gun- 
stein. The coming of his child would bring Oyvind 
from his strange obsession. Surely the thought of 
it would give him strength to withstand the strongest 
temptation that could come to him. 

On the following day, while she sat spinning. 


THB WHITE DAWN 


199 


she heard him enter the outer hall, leading to her 
building. She heard him stamp the snow from his 
feet, stop at the peg to hang up his leather jerkin, 
then he came into the room where she sat. He stood 
for a moment looking over her shoulders, at her 
white fingers busy with the wool. She looked back, 
into his eyes, shining with his love for her, a faint 
smile around his mouth. 

She dropped the wool into her lap, raised her 
arms and drew his face down to her own. With a 
low laugh he raised her from her stool and swung 
her around into his embrace. 

“You are wonderful to me, Gunlaug,” he whis- 
pered. “Don’t give me up ! Don’t give me up !” 

His last words came in a stifled sob and she felt 
him tremble. 

“No, no, Oyvind, you couldn’t think of my doing 
that, dearest. But hush! I have something to tell 
you, something that will help you to stand on your 
own feet, something that’ll help you forget all evil, 
Oyvind I” 

She had not proceeded far in her story before he 
straightened up and stood before her, his eyes di- 
lated as in extreme fear, his face once more falling 
into rigid lines. Without a word he turned and left 
her. She heard him stop a moment for his cap and 
jacket, then he walked out into the snow. She 
trembled to think where. 

She sank down on the nearest bench and covered 
her face with her hands, trembling in her agony as 


200 


THB WHITE DAWN 


if she had received a blow. She sat rocking to and 
fro as in keen physical pain, but not a word came 
over her lips. Only one great question lived in her 
heart. 

“O, thou White Christ, how long, O how long!” 
Surely He was one to help ! Her aid must come 
from above ; her sorrow was too deep, too terrible, 
for the Asas to heal! 


CHAPTER XXIX 


HE first month of the year was drawing to- 
wards its close when the baby was born. 
The hand that for so long had gripped Gun- 
laug’s heart seemed to have relaxed its hold and a 
new, soft happiness filled her soul with something 
like the melody of a sacred song. Her despair was 
gone. With both hands outstretched to Gunhild she 
begged for the happiness of holding her own child, 
tears of joy rolling down her cheeks. 

The White Christ had been good to her in giving 
her this child, beautiful, perfect in every particular. 
If only Oyvind knew, she thought, as the little one 
lay at her breast. Poor Oyvind! He was wander- 
ing about, somewhere in the wilds, obedient to the 
elfin power that held him. He was wandering in the 
woods — among the mountains. She dared think no 
further. 

The babe was almost a week old when Oyvind 
came home. Gunhild saw him come down the wide 
road that had been cleared thru the gap, reeling like 
a man drunk with mead. His face was drawn and 
haggard, his eyes bloodshot, his fair hair matted as 
if days had passed without a single care having been 
given to his person. He stopped before the girl as 



202 


THB WHITB DAWN 


she stood quietly in front of Gunlaug’s building, 
trembling as a criminal before his judge. 

“I have good news for you, Oyvind,^‘ she said, 
trying not to let him see how shocked she felt at his 
appearance. “You are the father to the most beau- 
tiful child I ever saw!” 

He stood for a moment, nervously twisting his 
cap between his fingers, as if in an inward fight for 
words. Moistening his fevered lips with the tip of 
his tongue, he whispered hoarsely: 

“A child! In mercy, Gunhild, why do you tor- 
ture me? Is it a boy or is it a girl?” 

“It is a boy,” she replied, then she fled. With an 
inarticulate sound that held an oath and a sob of 
thanksgiving, Oyvind fell to his knees, dropped his 
face into his upturned palms and wept. 

It was a clean, well-groomed man who stepped 
into his wife’s chamber that afternoon. Without a 
word he knelt before her and took her in his arms. 

“My dearest, my darling, I am happy today,” he 
told her. “Maybe all will be well.” 

Gunlaug lay back against her pillow and looked 
at him. For the second time since her son’s coming 
she felt her happiness come flooding back into every 
empty corner of her heart, so suddenly and so com- 
pletely that she bade fair to become overpowered. 
She could only lie there and gaze at the shining face of 
her husband and pat the warm little bundle beside her. 

“And now the boy,” he said at last, stooping over 
his son. “Are you sure it is a boy, Gunlaug?” 


THE WHITE DAWN 


203 


In the startled silence that followed the strange 
question she read the old terror in his eyes. With 
a forced little laugh, meant to hide her disappoint- 
ment, she replied cheerily: 

“Of course it’s a boy, Oyvind, and see, he’s a 
very picture of his father, my handsome skald!” 

The birth of his son seemed to have worked a 
complete regeneration in Oyvind. Gunlaug blos- 
somed out in all the loveliness of her girlhood 
beauty. Laughter and happy song flew, as before, 
unbidden to her lips. The little one grew and 
thrived in the atmosphere of love and happiness that 
surrounded him. It seemed that now Oyvind and 
Gunlaug were making a happy home. 

One little cloud still hung in Gunlaug’s horizon. 
Oyvind had never mended his harp. She never heard 
him sing, tho in his work among the men he seemed 
as happy as any one of them. She must be patient. 
Some day he would mend his harp. Some day he 
would waken the old melodies, some day he would 
sing the old songs. The Great Power that had done 
so much for her would not forsake her again. Their 
fate was with Olaf’s God, whom she was more and 
more inclined to trust, as she realized that her hurt 
was too great a one for the Asa-gods to heal. She 
would trust the White Christ. 

One evening in the early fall she received a rude 
awakening from her self-induced dreams. They were 
seated outside of her building on a long, wooden 
bench. The sun had set and the moon, in her serene 


204 


THE WHITE DAWN 


majesty, was sailing across the sky, her round disk 
from time to time hidden by heavy clouds scudding 
towards the east. The cattle and sheep and goats 
were all housed, and the homing noises of the wild 
things were subsiding. 

The transparent darkness that reigned while the 
moon was under a cloud showed her Oyvind’s face 
and his hands, hanging loosely folded between his 
knees, as unsteady patches of light. Then she saw 
him clasp his hands in a sudden wrench, as if with 
sheer physical force he would hold himself down 
where he sat. His face was turned towards the nar- 
row strip of water along the mountain-wall. Again 
he heard sounds she could not hear! Again he saw 
something hidden from her sight ! 

Again the cold hand gripped her heart, squeezing 
out all her new-found happiness. Again the old 
dread and bitterness entered her soul, and to it was 
added a new element of suffering. He was the father 
of her child. Now she had a double claim on him, 
and yet she knew that the dreadful pain and fear 
of the past would once more come upon her. 

Would he yield to the mystic temptation? Would 
he once more take up his old way of roaming in the 
forest and mountains? With her hands clasped over 
her painfully throbbing heart she sat watching him 
as he silently fought an unseen enemy. Would he 
conquer? Would he yield to this fiendish thing that 
so dominated him? Was there, then, no remedy? 
Would Oyvind conquer? Would he yield? For a 


TUB WHITB DAWN 


205 


moment one possibility tipped the balance, the next 
moment the other side was about to win. Had he 
the strength to master himself? 

If he would only turn from the impotent Asa- 
gods to the White Christ whom she in her despair 
had learned to seek! She prayed for him now, but 
her prayer was only half-hearted. She implored the 
aid of the White Christ and His Virgin Mother, but 
mingled with the prayers was a numbing, supersti- 
tious fear. Then Oyvind gave up the struggle. 

He rose from the bench, and without a word to 
her, without seemingly to realize her presence, he 
turned his back to her and walked rapidly out on 
the meadow towards the spot where the faint gleam 
betrayed the location of the narrow strip of water, 
lying along the mountain-wall. Soon he was out of 
sight, part and parcel of the night that was closing 
around him. And yet it was not the darkness that 
so much absorbed him as the sinister power which 
removed him from the proper place he was meant to 
occupy in the scheme of things. 

Now Gunlaug lost hope. Not so often as before 
the birth of their son did he follow the lure of the 
mountain, but she knew it was always there, a sin- 
ister power, in abeyance. Always there would come 
a night of the full moon when he would listen to the 
siren voice that drew him, and walk into hidden 
paths. When the fearful thing that worked its way 
with him had lost control, then he would return to 
his home, limp, gloomy, miserable. 


206 


THB WHITE DAWN 


Then winter set in. But for the little one Gun- 
laug could not have lived. The impression was 
abroad in the land that things were not right on 
the meadow, between Oyvind and Gunlaug. The 
neighbors talked freely, discussing his queer be- 
havior, pitying his wife. Few visitors ever set foot 
in their tun. Even the maids and the carls grew 
uneasy. 

Around the fire, during the long evenings, there 
was little of song, little of story-telling, and even less 
of laughter. Gunlaug often wondered if Oyvind 
after all had taken the fatal plunge, and this gloomy 
man was another, a stranger, occupying his flesh, a 
changeling! Then who was he, this one, who by 
the necromancy of an unseen power had been per- 
mitted to take his place at her side? 

She often wished she could take her troubles to 
Gunhild. But put into words, her fear seemed based 
on such puny grounds. It was true that when he re- 
turned from his wanderings, Oyvind seemed afraid, 
he avoided her touch and started, at her nearness, in 
sudden panic. But perhaps he was only tired and 
hungry, it was not easy to climb the rocks or wade 
thru the deep snow. Was she a proper judge? she 
asked herself. She, too, had roamed thru the forest 
and climbed the mountains, yet, to her knowledge, 
no one had ever accused her of being mountain- 
taken, of having sold her soul to the Christians’ 
Devil. 


CHAPTER XXX 


PRING came with her fairy steps across the 
mountains, the forest, and wold. She smiled 
on the dark, inscrutable pines, creeping up- 
ward on the mountain’s broad bosom, whose top, in 
radiant effulgence, threw back the sunshine she so 
lavished upon it. She glinted from the shining 
leaves of the birch, and brought to the velvety 
meadows her offerings of gay spring flowers as for 
the garnering of a festive gown. She wielded her 
magic brush and with her brightest colors beautified 
the charms of the close-lying scenes, while she 
tucked the far distances away in cool, purple 
shadows. 

The song-birds held hourly musicales in the leafy 
thickets, and in the fields the carls and maidens sang 
their roundelays. Life was so full in the spring, it 
had so many possibilities then, in the North. 

Seeding was finished, and down on the meadow 
the girls and herd-boys were gathering up the cattle 
and sheep and goats. They were taking them to the 
chalet on the mountain side. The air was full of 
sounds, the herd-girls’ tuneful yodle, the sweet notes 
of the lute, and the soft sound of the goat-herd’s 
flute. Softly, intermingled, came the mooing of the 



208 


THU WHITE DAWN 


cows that were leaving" the calves behind, the bleat- 
ing of the sheep and goats, the baying of the shep- 
herd dogs, and the sounds of various bells, from the 
tiny tinkle of that one tied about the neck of the 
black wether to the subdued clang of the great 
bronze bell suspended around the neck of Svanros, 
Gunlaug’s pet cow and the leader of them all. And 
from the mountain, which took no initiative, camei 
mixed echoes as in subdued reverberations it repro- 
duced every sound thrown against its naked ram- 
parts. 

According to a saying in the Northland, the 
chalet-girl is happy twice a year: on the day when 
she moves to the chalet and again when she moves 
back to the homestead. The maids of Oyvind and 
Gunlaug presented no exception to the rule. 

They had prospered, and it was a fine herd of 
cattle, an excellent flock of sheep and goats Gunlaug 
saw file along as she stood at the gate, counting them 
as they passed. The bell-cow came first, then the 
others, swinging their horned heads majestically 
from side to side, following their leader, a young girl 
who, yodling and coaxing, went at their head. 

Then came the sheep with not a few lambs, their 
gentle eyes to the front, tripping along behind the 
bell-wether which followed the boy with the lute. 

The goats came next. Here was neither docility 
nor majesty. More than one boy was needed to 
gather up the stragglers as they pranced about, bent 
on mischief. Gunlaug laughed heartily when she 


THB WHITB DAWN 


209 


saw Harald, who stopped and at the point of a stick 
tried to urge ahead an old patriarch with a long 
beard. He was not as benevolent as he looked, for 
he turned on the boy. Harald turned, too, while 
Billy eagerly planted his long, straight horns in the 
part of the boy^s anatomy left nearest to him, and 
sent him spinning down the dusty road. The boy 
frantically scrambled to all fours. This presented 
such a splendid opportunity for Billy that he seized 
it and with a second assault, sent Harald still farther 
on the homeward trend. He then fell to innocent 
nibbling of the grass along the road-side, till Balder, 
the dog, brought him into submission. 

Gunlaug was now left with only two maids, Gun- 
hild and Ylve, to do the work of the women. Oy- 
vind kept one man. The others were in the woods, 
hewing the trees, getting them to the homestead, so 
that when winter again returned to the Northland 
there would be an abundance of fuel. 

Oyvind’s periodic stays in the forest became of 
longer duration, too, as the spring passed into sum- 
mer. Only one ray of light illuminated Gunlaug’s 
darkness. He had been happy after Olafs birth, 
she would tell him that she expected another child. 
Perhaps that would complete what had been begun 
by the little son who was now two years old. 

And so when he returned to her one day she told 
him that by midsummer another child would arrive 
to call him father. 

But she was disappointed. His face turned an 


210 


THE WHITE DAWN 


ashen white, his lips straightened into a pale line, 
his fists closed in a tight grip. His form became 
rigid, he shook as with intolerable fear. Without a 
word he turned from her and fled, as from one who 
was polluted with pestilence. 

Weeping, she went into her chamber and knelt 
beside Olafs bed, hiding her face in the blanket. 
She had no hope now, and she could not pray. 

It was a month later, and Gunlaug was sitting 
alone on the bench outside of her building. She was 
puzzled and not a little scared, for at several points 
on the mountain sides she saw columns of smoke. 
The men were being called together on the plain 
near the church, where from time immemorial they 
had met for the Thing. What did this meeting 
portend ? 

Was it a Thing to read and acecpt another law 
from Olaf, or was it a meeting to discuss the pos- 
sibility of war? The times were so unruly, they 
might expect almost anything. The people of Lesje 
had been fortunate in escaping warfare for a long 
time. 

She was not long to remain ignorant. Over the 
gap she saw a horseman coming down to the 
meadow. A single glance told her that he was a 
king’s messenger. He stopped his horse before her. 

“I bring God Almighty’s and Olaf’s salutation !” 
he cried. Then he opened the voluminous folds of 
his cloak and took out a small, carved staff and held 
it for a moment aloft. There was to be a Thing, then. 


THB WHITE DAWN 


211 


But what new laws would they now be compelled to 
accept? Perhaps the king himself was coming! 

Gunlaug sighed as she rose to salute the rider. 
Then he turned his horse and rode away as fast as he 
had come. 

What could she do? Would it be safe to let 
Oyvind be missing from the Thing? And where 
could she seek him? She was to become still more 
puzzled, for the next day a young man, Bj^rn from 
Sogni, whom she knew well, rode into the tun. He, 
too, carried a messenger-token. She stood up and 
told him that Oyvind was away, that she did not 
know where he was, did not know when he would 
return. Then, motioning her to come up closer, he 
opened his jacket. She tumbled back, deathly pale. 
Then it was to be war. Bjpirn from Sogni carried 
an arrow. 

On the appointed day the men gathered for the 
Thing in their Sunday clothes, and as was customary, 
stood in groups and talked. In low voices they dis- 
cussed what was now of supreme interest. They 
stood sullen, determined, casting frequent glances 
into the woods. In there behind the rocks and trees 
they had concealed their bows and arrows, their 
clubs and battle-axes. They were prepared to fight 
for their right of adherence to the Asa-gods. 

“It is quite plain that the Asas are angry because 
the people of Lesje have turned their backs on the 
old gods,” declared Thorold the Strong. “See what 
scant crops rewarded our sowing last year. Now the 


212 


THB WHITB DAWN 


summer is dry. If we freely worship the new gods 
we may starve to death, we with our families.” 

A low murmur rippled thru the crowd. 

“On no account let us this day accept the White 
Christ !” cried Gunstein. 

This brought no reply, for just then Olaf’s mes- 
senger rode into their midst. He brought his horse 
to such sudden stop that the fiery animal rose for a 
moment on his hind legs, pawing the air and snort- 
ing as with wild fear. 

‘T bring you God Almighty’s and Olaf’s saluta- 
tion!” the man cried in a loud voice. “He will but 
now ride into your midst and will here hold Thing I” 

It was as the messenger had told them. Olaf 
soon came riding up to the plain, accompanied by 
Bishop Grimkel of Nidaros. 

The king wore a hat with swaying plumes and a 
wide cape lined with crimson and embroidered in 
gold. His tight-fitting jacket was also of crimson, 
with fine lace at the throat, bosom, and wrists. His 
small-clothes were of black velvet, closed at the knees 
with gold-buckles; he wore white leg-coverings and 
small, pointed shoes. 

His companion wore a bishop’s robe and a coif 
on his head, the staff of the exalted office in his hand. 
The king and bishop, accompanied by many knights, 
walked to the very top of the eminence, and Olaf ad- 
dressed the people. He demanded that they should 
take the vows of Christianity. 

The binder equally loudly objected. At a sign 


THU WHITE DAWN 


213 


from Gunstein they turned and, as one man, they ran 
towards the woods, where their weapons were hid- 
den, but they stopped half-ways. 

Here they were met by Olaf’s men, who rushed 
out at them from an ambush. Now they stood facing 
spears and bows. Some were pierced by spears, 
some were wounded and taken to the rear, some 
were bound and laid by for hostages. The binder 
now saw they had been outwitted. There was noth- 
ing left for them but to return to Olaf and agree with 
him. 

The bishop now, staff in hand, stepped forth and 
administered the oath by which the Northmen ab- 
jured the Asa-gods. Standing in concentric circles 
around Bishop Grimkel, they repeated after him : 

“Ec forsaka Diablae, allum Diaboles wercum 
end Wordum, Thundaer end Odin end allum them 
unholdem de hira sint!'’ 

And now that this was over, those who on the 
first visit of Olaf to Lesje were not baptized, re- 
ceived Holy Baptism at the hands of the bishop. 
In this Grimkel was assisted by Father Hierony- 
mus, whom Olaf had brought with him, that he 
might assist Father Anselmo in his parish work 
while another church should be built in Eesje. 

Then Olaf announced that all the men, women, 
and children who that day did not promise to forsake 
the “Devil and all his works and all his words and 
Thor and Odin with all the unholy deeds that fol- 
lowed in their worship,’’ must take the vow and be 


214 


THB WHITE DAWN 


baptized as soon as they could be brought either to 
the church or to the house of the priests. 

After this the people, with great acclaim, once 
more accepted Olaf as their king. His new laws were 
read, and equally loud voices were raised in their 
approval. Olaf then parted from the people of Lesje 
with much good-will, and the men, after they had 
arranged to bury their dead and care for the 
wounded, went home, “each by himself,” as Olaf had 
demanded. 

Any infringement of the king’s laws would mean 
the loss of life or limb, or they would be held as 
hostages and sent to Gardarike or Jorsala. From 
there Olaf went to bring the fear of the White Christ 
into the hearts of the people in Vaage, Lorn, Breida, 
and neighboring country, but he would be sure 
to leave those behind him who would report any ir- 
regularity. 

Never more would they dare offer a lamb or a 
goat to the Asas for peace and a good season. They 
would now be compelled to acept almost any kind 
of a crop and likely have to fight like devils. If 
only the White Christ would give them a little, they 
would be satisfied if He’d give them enough corn so 
they wouldn’t starve, they and their wives and little 
ones. They would not ask too much to begin with. 

Someho w, too, the White Christ was too gentle, too 
forgiving to make the proper kind of a god for the 
adventurous Vikings. They were proud of their raids, 
their blood-shed. Proud of the fear, spread by the 


THE WHITE DAWN 


215 


name of the Northman over the whole world. The 
worship of the grim Asa-gods, Odin, Thor, and Frey 
at least, made a better setting for the tumultuous 
warriors than that of the gentle, peaceful Son of 
Man, the Divine Master, the Man of Sorrows. He 
belonged with the lowly fisherman on the margin of 
Gennesareth. He belonged among the peaceful shep- 
herds on the hills of Palestine. 


CHAPTER XXXI 


I WIND was away from home when his sec- 
ond child was born. Gunlaug knew not 
where, except as Guthorm had said one day 
when he had walked down from Skallet: 

“He is in his old home, Gunlaug, eating his heart 


I 


a 

m 


out.” 

She would have gone to him, but her one fear 
kept her back. What would she learn if she came 
upon him unawares, as she had that night so long 
ago now? Was he consorting with the unholy elf- 
people? Would he not then be more fully lost to 
her than if he had died, leaving but his image of 
clay? What if she were to learn, without a doubt, 
that he had sold his soul to the Christians’ Devil! 

This time Oyvind did not come home to receive 
the news. Gunhild, one afternoon while Gunlaug 
slept, went to him. It was towards sunset when she 
emerged from the fringe of birches that stood be- 
tween the big trees and the clearing of his tun. 
Would she find him there? Would he return with 
her to his wife, who was sick and heart-broken? 
Gunlaug would not live long if Oyvind did not soon 
come home, she knew that. 

Even as she stood there she could see the white 



THB WHITB DAWN 


217 


face, the large questioning eyes of Oyvind^s wife. 
Always they were mutely asking her why he did not 
come to look at his child. Why, oh, why did he not 
come to her? Surely the arrival of a second child 
would remove the curse which for a time seemed to 
have been lifted with that of their first-born. 

It was because Gunhild no longer was able to en- 
dure Gunlaug’s dumb agony that she had gone in 
search of Oyvind. 

She paused in the open door. He sat before her, 
his face hidden in his arms, which were folded on the 
table before him. In the droop of his shoulders, in 
the bend of his neck, in the contractions of the 
shuddering muscles lay pictured an abysmal despair. 
She walked up to him, and placed her hand on his 
head. 

With a hoarse cry he sprang to his feet. He 
stood before her rigid as with fear, staring at her. 
His hair was matted and disheveled, his eyes were 
red and swollen, his lips were livid, and his face 
looked like a death-mask. 

“What do you want?” he panted. 

“I didn’t come to hurt you, and I came from 
Gunlaug,” said Gunhild. 

“But why are you here?” he mumbled, sinking 
once more into his former attitude, but with his head 
up, his eyes fixed upon her as in mute prayer tor 
mercy. It seemed as if his very life would depend 
upon the first word that came from her lips. The 
pity in her heart prevented her from uttering the 


218 


THB WHITE DAWN 


harsh words she had rehearsed on the way, and 
she spoke gently 

“I came to tell you that your wdfe has given birth 
to another child,” she said. 

His eyes dilated in fear. With twitching lips, that 
hardly managed to form the words, he asked : 

“Is it — a girl — or a boy?” 

“A tiny girl, this time,” she replied soothingly. 

For a moment he sat as in stupefied silence. 
Then with a dreadful cry, as that of a wild animal 
receiving its death-wound, he rose to his feet and be- 
gan pacing the room. He cursed all things in 
heaven and on earth. He cursed all things under 
the earth. At last his language became so fearful 
that Gunhild put her hands to her ears and fled from 
his presence as she would have fled from the Chris- 
tians’ Devil. 

On the edge of the cliff she stopped and looked 
down on the peaceful scene below. What ungodly 
power possessed Oyvind? He was a veritable de- 
mon ! Where would it all end ? She trembled in fear 
and disgust and hoped Gunlaug had not missed her. 
She would never tell her what had happened, nor 
where she had been. She still hoped that Oyvind 
would come back to his right mind and seek his 
wife. He still loved her, she knew that, and the boy, 
too. But what could there be about a new-born 
babe to make a man curse as Oyvind had cursed? 


CHAPTER XXXII 


a UNHILD’S surmise proved correct. It was 
not many days before Oyvind, clean and in 
his right mind, came to see his family. He 
was as tender as usual towards his wife, but he 
looked sick and miserable when his little daughter 
was laid in his arms. Gunlaug sighed. She enter- 
tained no illusions. The birth of her second child 
was not to remove the curse, then. Again she bade 
farewell to her golden dreams. 

She realized that this dreadful thing which had 
come between them would always stalk as a gaunt 
spectre in their path. She would live for her babies, 
Gunlaug determined this; but she also determined 
that no more innocent little ones should be projected 
into the maelstrom of their unhappy family life. 

Oyvind felt relieved when she suggested that he 
should establish himself permanently apart from her, 
on the opposite side of the tun. She, too, felt better, 
for so much that was nerve-racking was removed. 
He could come and go now, and she would not have 
to know. 

And so the months rolled around. They sat one 
night together on the bench before Gunlaug’s build- 
ing, talking of the little daughter. 



220 


THB WHITE DAWN 


“She is ten months old now, we must have her 
christened,” she said. 

“Is there any special reason why this must be 
done at once?” he asked with white lips. 

Gunlaug trembled. The spell was upon him. 
Again heM seek the mountain, perhaps to assist in 
the fearful orgies said to take place within. But why 
this sudden fear? 

“I know no special reason for sure,” she said 
as calmly as her shaking voice permitted ; “one hears 
so much these days.” 

“Promise me you won’t have her christened till 
you must,” he said harshly, rising. 

He walked back to his own building. A little 
later she saw him as he hastened across the 
meadow to the point where the narrow strip of water 
hugged the perpendicular mountain-wall at the west. 
He belonged to the mountain, after all, not to the 
Christians’ Devil! Who was there to know that the 
mountain spirit was not in league with the Christians’ 
Devil ? 


CHAPTER XXXIII 


T was not long before Gunlaug knew that the 
rumors which had but faintly reached her 
were true. Already men were scouring the 
valley for those who were delinquent in their reli- 
gious duties. Their boy had been christened, but 
from that day neither she nor Oyvind had attended 
church. They had not even been to confession, had 
not visited the priests as they had been commanded 
by Olaf. Oyvind had been away for a week now. 
She wished he would return so she could have him 
arrange for the child’s christening. 

One day Guthorm walked down to the meadow, 
and she opened her heart to him. 

He sat for a few moments twisting his massive 
hands, lying folded on his knees. 

‘T shall go to him,” he said at last; ^T know 
where to find him.” 

A dull red mounted to Oyvind’s face when he 
saw his father emerge from the fringe of birch and 
come toward him, as he sat in the shade by his 
house. 

^^Good day, Oyvind, good word and thanks for 
the day when last we met,” he said. 

“Good word, and thanks to you in like manner,” 



222 


THB WHITE DAWN 


returned Oyvind, but without taking the proffered 
hand. 

Guthorm seated himself beside his son and went 
on with evident unconcern. 

“They are gathering up the children for baptism. 
“I suppose they have been to see you, down on the 
meadow?’^ 

“No!” replied the younger man, sitting straight 
and rigid. 

“I understand the punishment is very severe 
against those who fail to bring them,” Guthorm con- 
tinued. “Gunlaug is uneasy about the girl.” 

Oyvind sat trembling. “Did she send you?” he 
whispered. 

“No,” replied Guthorm, “I offered to come.” 

Oyvind sank together even more hopelessly than 
before. In his eyes burned the flame of one who 
feels himself eternally damned. 

“Tell her where I am,” he whispered. “But, as 
you value your own salvation, do not ask her to 
come.” 

“Do you want her to come?” inquired Guthorm. 

Oyvind shook his head and bit his lip as if to 
ward off a thoughtless word. “I — I can not say 
— dare not say,” he stammered. 

“Tell me, lad, what has gone amiss with you?” 
begged Guthorm, laying a hand on his son’s shoul- 
der. “My experiences have been varied and strange. 
Perhaps I could understand, perhaps I could help.” 

“No, no,” groaned Oyvind, edging away from 


THB WHITE DAWN 


223 


the detaining hand, “no one can help me. I dare 
not tell you my troubles. That would bring instant 
disaster to Gunlaug, to the children, besides to me, 
perhaps to many others. No, I must keep still. I 
must continue to suffer in silence. There is no other 
way till the end of it all comes.” 

“But what will the end be?” asked Guthorm, 
“Gunlaug is breaking her heart. Your father suffers, 
and Thorold the Strong is grief-stricken. You may 
suffer in silence, but you can not suffer alone.” 

Oyvind dropped his face into his hands. “I 
know,” he groaned, “you are speaking the truth. 
But by keeping silent I can stave it off for a time, 
but the catastrophe, in the end it must come. In the 
end it must come.” 


CHAPTER XXXIV 


HE midsummer sun had set when some one 
rapped on the door leading to Father An- 
selmo’s study. On the threshold stood Gun- 
laug and Gunhild. 

“What can I do for you, my daughters?” asked 
the priest as soon as they were seated. 

“It is to speak to you of my husband that I have 
come, Father,” sobbed Gunlaug. The priest, know- 
ing well the value of tears, stood quietly waiting 
while she wept. Then she continued, “he acts so 
strangely.” 

“In which way?” asked Father Anselmo. 

“For days he seems right in every way, then ot 
a sudden some power that I can not see gets the 
upper hand of him. This leads him into the woods, 
into the mountains. He almost runs in his eagerness 
to be gone. When he returns, sometimes after hours, 
sometimes after days, he seems afraid to look at me, 
to touch me. He looks old and worn as with much 
walking or from hard labor. Sometimes, methinks 
he has walked miles, but why?” 

“Can you give me no reason for all this?” asked 
the priest. 

“Sometimes I imagine he’d have me abandon the 




THU WHITE DAWN 


225 


home down on the meadow and come to him in his 
old home,” she replied, “but he never said so in 
words. I don't know what to do. I come to you. 
Father, for guidance.” 

“And may the Holy Mother show me the advice 
you need, my daughter,” he replied fervently. “But 
there must be something to account for this strange 
aberration.” 

Gunlaug shook her head. “I don't account for 
it any longer,' she said. 

“You think, then, that a curse hangs over the 
meadow?” he asked. “Your holding came up from 
the tjern, didn't it? Can the underearthlings have 
any power over it, think you, after it was blessed and 
dedicated by the Holy Church to the full use of 
man?” ^ 

Again she shook her head. ' "’i 

“I can say nothing,” she replied. “My ideas are 
so fleeting, they have so little ground, that should I 
speak of them it would prove misleading. I shall 
abide by your judgment. If you think I should take 
the children and go to my husband, to whom I feel 
more and more drawn, I shall do so. If you advise 
staying on the homestead, I shall stay. I only desire 
your guidance.” 

“I will tell you what I think is best,” he returned, 
“in a few days Bishop Sigurd is coming with several 
priests and attendants. Olaf has given us a church- 
bell, and now a new church is to be built. It is for 
this the bishop is coming, to find the site for it and 
8 


226 


THE WHITE DAWN 


to bless it. Also he looks for cases of parents’ neg- 
lect in baptizing children and for those who still in- 
dulge in the worship of the Asa-gods.” 

Gunlaug looked questioningly at Father Anselmo 
and he continued : 

‘‘Go back to your home, my daughter, fast with 
all your people! Fast and pray! When Bishop 
Sigurd comes I shall tell him of your husband, the 
bishop will know what is best. In the meantime, 
if you are troubled in spirit come to me. I shall 
do my utmost to guide you, my daughter.” 

After many thanks the two women left the priest’s 
house. 

‘‘Somehow I feel that the Church of God is going 
to help me out of my difficulty,” said Gunlaug. 

Gunhild voiced a prayer of thankfulness for that 
measure of comfort. With hope they could endure 
much. 


CHAPTER XXXV 


ATHER Anselmo had another visitor that 
night. When the heavy door swung open it 
was to admit Brynjulf, house-carl of Gunstein 
the Brave. He sat on the bench shown him, dumbly 
twisting his cap and gazing at his cow-hide clogs. 

“Is there any punishment for not baptizing a 
child a year old, Holy Father?” he asked at last. 

“That depends upon the conditions,” replied 
Father Anselmo, “whether the parents refuse their 
child the blessings of the Holy Sacrament or if they 
are ignorant of its needs or if they are too far from 
the church. Whatever holds them back, they should 
see me. I am here to help them.” 

“Not any of the last are the real reasons. Fa- 
ther,” returned Brynjulf. “The father is a heathen 
who holds himself to the Asas. He runs like a mad- 
man in the forest and among the mountains. Some 
think that he has been mountain-taken. Others hold 
that, for the land which came up from the tjern, he 
sold his soul to the Christians’ Devil ” 

“Sold what, to whom?” cried Father Anselmo. 

“To er — er — our Devil, Holy Father,” returned 
Brynjulf, blinking in sudden fright. This slip of the 
tongue ! And — the priest ! 




228 


THB WHITE DAWN 


“How dare you make such assertions ?” asked the 
priest warmly. 

“People have met him in the mountains and along 
the narrow strip of water along the high mountain 
at the side of the meadow,” returned the man 
nervously. “No one can climb the mountain, yet he 
gets lost there. And they run from him when they 
meet him after that, especially under the full moon. 
He is not human then, but a werewolf. His eyes 
glow, his teeth grit and snap, his nails protrude like 
claws at the tips of his fingers. He can run as fast 
as the rabbit or the wolf then. 

“He has never brought his child to be baptized. 
I know where to find him when he is in his right 
mind. I will help you bring him to justice.” 

“Of whom are you speaking?” asked the priest, 
who began to perceive a little light. 

“I am speaking of Oyvind the Skald, son of 
Guthorm of Skallet,” replied Brynjulf eagerly. “His 
wife is the proud Gunlaug, daughter of Thorold the 
Strong, son of Sigvat Skaldaspiller.” 

“I shall do nothing about this now,” said the 
priest deliberately. “Bishop Sigurd comes here soon. 
I will lay the matter before him.” 

With this Brynjulf was dismissed. 

Then Father Anselmo called his colleague, and 
the two men sat discussing the strange story. 

“It must be the curse of an evil conscience,” ob- 
served Father Hieronymus as he extinguished his 
tallow dip, preparatory to going back to his cell. 


THE WHITE DAWN 


229 


where he would take a short nap before beginning 
the day’s activities. 

“I shall request of Bishop Sigurd that the church 
be built on the meadow,” said Father Anselmo, in 
parting. ‘^That will remove the general fear and the 
deep superstition that hangs over the place.” 

A few days later Bishop Sigurd arrived. He list- 
ened quietly to Father Anselmo’s tale of Oyvind. 

“We must rescue that man from his evil ways!” 
he exclaimed. “We can do more to gain men for the 
White Christ by saving this one than by months of 
warfare, such as pursued by Olaf. In a measure it 
will counteract the cruelties the king inflicts upon 
the pagans. We’ll build the church on Oyvind’s 
holdings. Say nothing to him of this nor about 
the baptism of his child. Do not approach him with 
anything religious. Tell everybody to keep away 
from him.” 

“That won’t be difficult, according to the tales I 
hear,” replied Father Anselmo. “No one dares go 
near him, and he simply runs at the approach of 
every one.” 

“Ver}^ well, leave him alone for the present,” 
concluded the bishop. “At the dedication of the 
church we’ll baptize his child. Then we’ll march 
around the church, in procession, and sprinkle the 
ground with Holy Water. That will re-dedicate the 
meadow, as it were, it will remove their superstitious 
fear. When that is done we’ll get this wild skald.” 

It remained at that. Oyvind was left in his old 


230 


THB WHITE DAWN 


home and knew nothing of the activities pursued on 
his meadow, where the structure of the new church 
was rising against the blue sky. It was a marvel, 
the rapidity with which the building grew. There 
was an abundance of timber, and the workers were 
willing, but even that did not explain its wonderful 
progress. The people once more gathered on the 
top of the cliffs, looking down, filled with awe at the 
rapid advancement, which they declared was greater 
than that of mere human agency. 

It was early autumn when the edifice was fin- 
ished, its graceful steeple piercing the clear sky, the 
square bell-tower, in which hung Olafs bell, com- 
pleted. Bishop Sigurd had arrived. On the follow- 
ing Sunday the church would be dedicated and the 
meadow blessed by the bishop. The meadow that 
had risen from the gloomy depths of Blackwater 
Tjem would forever be free from all evil powers. 


CHAPTER XXXVI 


T was on Saturday evening, before the day 
set apart for the dedication of the church. 
Oyvind, as usual, sat outside the door of his 
old home, his aunt stealing silently about, in her 
household duties. Guthorm stepped out from among 
the birches, crossed the tun, and stopped before his 
son. 

After proper greetings he seated himself beside 
him and without any preliminaries began: 

“I have just returned from beyond the mountains 
to the west,’’ he said. “Strange things have befallen 
the people there. You know when Olaf came thru 
here he went from Eesje farther down the valley, but 
it was not till recently that he came with full force 
upon the people there. 

“When Dalegudbrand learned that Olaf was com- 
ing he sent his men out with messenger-tokens, the 
arrow and the staff, too. So they knew it would be 
war as well as Thing. He also caused fires to be 
built along the mountain-side, and from far and near 
the men came streaming with the axes on their 
shoulders. 

“Soon Gudbrand got word of Olafs movements, 
so his men met him at Hundthing. Hundreds came 




232 


THU WHITE DAWN 


in boats, across Laugen. Gudbrand stood before his 
people and said: 

“ ‘Olaf comes among us with his new god. He 
desires that we shall break our old ones asunder. 
It is strange that the earth does not open and swal- 
low him up or that our gods let him go around and 
talk as he does. But Thor has always stood by the 
Northmen. When we carry him out, Olaf’s god will 
melt and he will look upon nothing.’ 

‘Olaf shall never escape from the binder of 
Gudbrandsdalen !’ shouted the men in reply. 

“Dalegudbrand’s eighteen-year-old son took seven 
hundred men and went to Breida. Here they were 
to watch Olaf’s movements. Arrived at Hoff they 
had news of the king and stayed there for three 
days. Men streamed thereward, from Vaage and 
Lorn, not wanting Christianity. In Breida, too, the 
binder heard about Olaf’s project and prepared for 
battle. 

“Soon, at the head of his men, Olaf came. In his 
loudest voice he spoke to the bjzinder while standing 
before them, asking them to accept Christianity. 

“The bjzinder replied : ‘We shall give you and your 
men something to do this day except mocking at us.’ 

“They rushed towards the king’s men, striking 
at their shields and brandishing their battle-axes, 
but the king’s men rode forward with their spears. 
Then the binder turned and fled. 

Gulbrand’s son showed fight and was captured. 
Him Olaf gave his life and sent to his father. 


THU WHITE DAWN 


233 


“ ‘Tell Dalegudbrand that I shall come/ he said. 

“In Gudbrandsdal the bjzlnder decided to hold 
Thing, agreeing to accept a truce as long as the 
Thing lasted. On the day set a heavy rain fell. Still 
they met. Olaf then stood before the people and 
said that the binder of Lesje, Lorn, Vaage, and 
Breida had accepted Christianity, forsaken their old 
gods, and that they had broken up their sacrificial 
houses. They now believed in the true God, who 
had made heaven and earth and all things that 
live. 

“ ‘Dost call him a god whom neither thou nor 
any one else can see, Olaf?’ shouted a man from the 
crowd. Another took up the shout. 

“ ‘We have a god that can be seen any day,’ he 
went on, ‘but he is not here today, because it has 
rained. He appears so terrible and grand that fear 
will mix with your blood when Thor looks at you 
with his sharp eyes. Tomorrow let your god make 
a cloudy day, but not with rain. Then tomorrow at 
this place we’ll meet you.” 

“So Olaf went back to his lodging, taking Gud- 
brand’s son with him. 

“ ‘What is your god like ?’ Olaf asked the boy. 

“ ‘Like Thor with the hammer,’ replied Gud- 
brand’s son. ‘He is of immense size and is on a 
great stand. Neither silver nor gold is wanting 
about him. He is hollow, and every day he receives 
four cakes of bread and much mead.’ 

“The king watched all night in prayers. In early 

9 


234 


THB WHITE DAWN 


morning he went to mass. From there he went to 
the Thing. It was such a day as the bonde had re- 
quested, cloudy but with no rain. 

“Bishop Sigurd stood with his staff in hand, the 
bishop’s coif on his head, talking to the people. 

“Then Gudbrand stood up. 

“ ‘Many things have been told us by this horned 
man with the staff in his hand, crooked as a ram’s 
horn,’ he said. ‘Since your god is so wonderful, let 
him make us a clear, sunshiny day tomorrow. Then 
we shall meet here again. We shall then either fight 
with you or agree with you.’ 

“The next day Olaf went to the Thing accom^ 
panied by Bishop Sigurd and Kolbein Sterke. Kol- 
bein had his club in his hand. Then the men brought 
Thor. The god, as the boy had told Olaf, was orna- 
mented with much silver and gold. 

“ ‘Where, now, Olaf, is thy god ?’ asked Dale- 
gudbrand. ‘Methinks he’ll not now carry his head 
so high. Neither you nor the man with the horn, 
whom you call bishop, will carry your head so high 
or be so bold now that Thor has come to the Thing 
and looks at you with his sharp eyes. I see you are 
terrified. Now is the time for you to throw away 
your appointments and believe in the god who has 
your fate in his hands.’ 

“‘Not SO'!’ cried Olaf. ‘But see, there comes our 
God in great splendor 1’ With this he pointed to the 
rising sun. All the men looked towards the east. 
Then Kolbein Sterke struck the god with his club 


THB WHITE DAWN 


235 


and broke it. Mice, almost as big as cats, rushed 
out, and reptiles and adders, scattering in every di- 
rection. Now the binder fled in terror. But their 
boats had been pierced and their horses had been 
untied and sent into the forest. Now there was 
nothing left for them but to go back to Olaf. 

‘‘Dalegudbrand then stood before Olaf and Bishop 
Sigurd and said : 

'' ‘We have this day sustained great injury to our 
god. And now that Thor will no longer aid us, we 
must turn to yours.’ 

“So Gudbrand and all his people were baptized. 
Olaf is building a church in Gudbrandsdal, and 
Bishop Sigurd left priests and teachers there to serve 
the people. 

“And so,” concluded Guthorm, “I am telling you 
this so you may profit by their example. Tomorrow 
the church here in Lesje is to be dedicated by the 
bishop, and then your daughter must be baptized or 
I will not answer for the consequences. Olaf will no 
more tolerate paganism in Lesje than he did in the 
neighboring valley.” 

This tale from Gudbrandsdal had been spread 
pretty well in that part of the country and it added 
to Gunlaug’s perplexities. She must take the little 
girl to church for baptism, but what should she do 
about Oyvind. His punishment would be severe if 
he did not come and stand up with her during the 
baptismal ceremony. 

She could no longer stave it off. Now Guthorm 


236 


THE WHITE DAWN 


had spoken to Oyvind, and he knew what had to 
he done. Would he still roam thru the forest and 
in the mountain like a madman, or would he make 
himself tidy and, like an honest father, stand up with 
her in the church? 


CHAPTER XXXVII 


« HE momentous day dawned white and clear. 

Gunlaug, with all her people, were up be- 
times. They were all going to church, and 
she, followed by her maids, carried the baptismal 
child, clad in fine, white linen. On her heart lay a 
burden heavier than usual. It was with difficulty 
that she kept the tears back. If only Oyvind had 
come ! Who knows what the power of the divine 
guidance might do for him. Perhaps the holy service 
of blessing and consecration would remove the curse 
which, like a cancer, was eating into their lives. 

Guthorm came towards her from the church. She 
was glad when she saw him. It removed some of the 
agony she felt in coming alone with her child before 
the bishop. Guthorm had little to say. He had 
talked with Oyvind, but did not know to what end. 

He was much pleased to see his little grand- 
daughter. Taking her from the mother’s arms, he 
said to the child 

‘'And now the little one is to be baptized. She 
who otherwise would have been the devil’s, will now 
be of God. She will be a little Christian maiden.” 

Out in the open, in front of the church, stood a 
multitude of people. They had come from far and 


238 


THB WHITE DAWN 


near, many whom Gunlaug had not seen since her 
wedding. This was a wonderful occasion. 

They were talking in an undertone. She felt their 
eyes sweep her, then many of them kept still. Evi- 
dently they had talked about her, and Gunlaug felt 
her cheeks burn, her eyes heavy with unshed tears. 
Without a word to any one and holding her child 
close to her breast, she walked to the side entrance. 
She would enter the sacristy and complete the pre- 
liminaries for the child’s baptism. 

She came face to face with her father. He 
greeted her with a few words. It was plainly to be 
seen that he, too, suffered, and his eyes shone with 
feverish brilliancy. Guthorm went and talked to 
Thorold and, as was customary among the North- 
men, they talked of everything that concerned them 
but a little, of the beautiful weather, of the laws they 
must henceforth obey, and of the prospects for a 
long, mild autumn. 

Bishop Sigurd arrived. He was accompanied by 
a man in a blue, richly embroidered cloak, and at- 
tended by many priests in black cassocks and cowls. 
All eyes were on the bishop and his companion, who 
was tall and dark, with regular features and flashing 
blue eyes. He was dressed like a courtier, but he had 
an air about him which caused the curious ones to 
whisper that he had not come from Nidaros, but 
from a distant country, perhaps, indeed, from the 
land of the Danes. 

The bishop and his followers entered the church. 


THU WHITU DA WN 


239 


and after them the populace began filing in. The 
sexton rang the bell, and a dreadful thing happened. 
Guthorm was the first one to observe it. He was just 
ready to step on the threshold of the outer portico 
when he felt himself sinking in soft mud. 

He looked around to those behind him and saw 
them in the same predicament. An awful cry rose. 
He looked across the meadow, where several horse- 
men were urging their beasts forward ; but the horses 
stuck ever deeper in the mud and, where they had 
passed, the water spurted up in the footprints of the 
horses. 

Guthorm knew what it meant. The curse Oyvind 
had feared was fallen. If the new god was unable 
to help them now they were doomed. In another 
moment Blackwater Tjern would again be in ascend- 
ency. In another moment it would close upon them. 
From then, for all time, it would lie brooding over 
another tragedy. Something must be done! 

With a desperate pull he extricated himself. Then 
he ran into the church. A few whispered words to 
Bishop Sigurd sufficed. Instantly the procession was 
formed. Bishop Sigurd came first, holding aloft the 
holy relic of the true cross, the priests followed in 
line with lighted candles, banners and swinging cen- 
sers. They marched around the church while the 
bishop chanted the Kyrie. Then the ground became 
solid under foot. 

Still there was danger. In front of the church 
a pond was rapidly forming. Soon it would eat 


240 


THB WHITE DAWN 


away its very foundation. Bishop Sigurd stopped 
and looked at its black waters. While the priests 
marched around it in procession he chanted the 
Litany, and then he knelt on its shore and prayed to 
the White Christ, the Holy Mother, and the Blessed 
Saints for their protection. Then Father Anselmo 
took the hyssop and sprinkled the edges with holy 
water. 

“So far shalt thou come and no farther!” he said, 
and Bishop Sigurd answered, “Amen!” 

The waters of the pond were still. The danger 
was past. 

Grateful for their deliverance, the people knelt 
around its waters and thanked the White Christ and 
His Holy Mother. 

Gunlaug had come out of the church with the 
rest and had witnessed the ceremonies. All her 
embarrassment had faded away. In the face of such 
wonderful manifestations, affairs of every-day life 
faded into nothingness. 


CHAPTER XXXVIII 


OME ONE pointed across the meadow, to- 
wards the steep mountain at the west. She 
looked. Some one — it was Oyvind, was 
coming towards them at full speed. When he reached 
the edge of the pond he panted from his fast run and 
his face was covered with perspiration. His clothes 
were soiled and torn. He trembled in every limb. 

He looked not to the right nor to the left. He 
walked right up to where Bishop Sigurd stood by the 
side of the man in the embroidered cloak. Here 
Oyvind knelt, humbly begging the man of God for 
his blessing. Bishop Sigurd talked kindly to him, 
urged him to seek forgiveness for his sins and con- 
cluded by praying for him. A little later Oyvind 
followed Father Anselmo to the confessional. 

The service was partly over when he emerged 
and took his place beside Gunlaug while the little 
daughter, who received the name of Ingebjorg, from 
Thorold’s grandmother, received baptism. His face 
was pale, but it reflected the new peace that lived in 
his soul. The dreadful thing which had changed 
the happy skald into the terrible creature he had 
become, had dropped from him like a worn-out 
garment. 



242 


THE WHITE DAWN 


Bub wonders had not ceased. The services were 
over, and friend sought friend to talk over the won- 
drous things that had come to pass. Again some one 
pointed towards the mountain on the west. From 
there came three human beings. One was a tall, 
queenly woman, leading a small boy by the hand. 
Behind her came a hunchback. 

In spite of his newfound happiness, Oyvind’s face 
turned white, his eyes dilated as in terror. Gunlaug 
saw and trembled. After all, even this was not to 
last. Even the White Christ could not help Oyvind. 
She grew sick from her disappointment. 

It was the queen of the underearthlings, and with 
her were her son and Hans, the hunchback. There 
was something about her that reminded them of Oy- 
vind. Like him she looked neither to the right nor 
to the left. Her eyes were fastened on the face of 
Bishop Sigurd, and before him she knelt, with her 
son and servant. 

Again words of prayers and blessing fell from 
the bishop’s lips. Again sinners went to the con- 
fessional. 

When the queen returned, she, with the other two, 
knelt beside the limpid waters of the pond. Here 
they were baptized. 

She rose happily to her feet and was about to 
address the bishop when her gaze was fastened upon 
him who wore the embroidered cloak. She walked 
towards him, her lips moving as in prayer. He 
opened his arms to her. 


THB WHITE DAWN 


243 


Oyvind knew this was the man Mokakala had 
taken into the mountain to be husband of the queen 
and the father to the second earthling to sit on his 
throne. How had this thing come to pass? 

“You never came back to me,” murmured the 
queen, who in baptism had received the name of 
Brynhild. 

“It was impossible for me, dearest,” he assured 
her. “As soon as I returned from the inside of the 
mountain I was carried into Dannemark, and there 
I have been till lately. Then I heard of the meadow 
having risen from the tjern, and I followed Bishop 
Sigurd, who is my friend, hither. Miracles had not 
ceased, then, I took on new hope and waited for my 
opportunity to come here again.” 

Again the bishop officiated. This time it was to 
solemnize the marriage which, having been consum- 
mated under the earth, needed the blessing of the 
Church. Since they were already husband and wife 
they dispensed with the bans, merely with the bless- 
ing of the bishop were they pronounced husband and 
wife. 

While the others talked they stood apart. 

“Is it not strange that we should at last stand 
under the sun?” she asked. “And, do you know? 
I have only one name for you. What besides Mag- 
nus do they call you?” 

He smiled at her incoherence. “I so love my 
friends,” he told her, “that I am called Magnus 
Vennesael.” 


244 


THE WHITE DAWN 


“It is a fine name,” she returned. “Often in the 
long days that followed the one when you left me, 
I wished I knew by what name your friends, under 
the sun, called you. I never saw such happiness. I 
never expected such a day as this, Magnus.” 

“Oh, I tried to return, Brynhild, I hope you’ll be- 
lieve that,” he said with painful earnestness. 

“I believe all you tell me, dearest,” she returned. 
“But I knew you who were baptized could never 
abide for the rest of your natural life within the 
mountain. You could not live among beings who 
were only lower animals in human form, and with a 
woman who, tho human, had no other humanizing 
influence than yours, in your talks to me of your 
God. Then you fired my soul with a desire to know 
more of Him and for a life in which I dared to wor- 
ship the Power that made me.” 

Brynhild swept the crowd with her eyes and saw 
Oyvind, who had remained near and who had been a 
witness to all that had passed. His face was still 
pale and he was trembling. Brynhild’s face turned 
hard and cold as she stood looking at him. 

Gunlaug saw and wondered. How could Oyvind 
have displeased this strange woman who must have 
come from the inside of the mountain? For no one 
could descend the steep western cliff to where she 
first came to view. 

The bishop, too, had observed Brynhild. He 
came up to where she stood. 

“This man has today been to confession and 


THB WHITE DAWN 


245 


has received absolution,” he said. “Surely, where 
God has forgiven, you, who are only human, should 
also forgive. We are all afflicted with the foibles 
that naturally cling to our clay.” 

So Brynhild went to Oyvind and gave him her 
hand. i ^ 

“May the White Christ and His Virgin Mother 
be with you henceforth and keep you from all evil,” 
she said fervently. “You are free now from the con- 
sequences of your great sin, but it is only thru the 
grace of divine Providence that this could be. It 
is only the true God who is able to annihilate an 
awful host such as held you in duress. Thank Him !” 

Gunlaug approached them now. 

“Won’t you and your husband make our home 
yours for the night ?” she begged. “The houses round 
about are filled with guests. I would that you comie 
to us.” 

Oyvind now added his invitation, which was 
cordially accepted. 


CHAPTER XXXIX 


T was late before Oyvind found the oppor- 
tunity to ask Brynhild the questions that 
clamored for an answer. They were seated 
on the bench outside of Gunlaug’s building, looking 
at the mountain, dimly silhouetted against the grey 
autumn twilight. 

“How did you escape?” he asked first of all. 
“Did Mokakala open the passage thru the moun- 
tain?” 

“We escaped by the passage left for him who was 
to bring the next queen of the underearthlings,” she 
replied. 

Oyvind shuddered. Pie knew what she meant. 

Brynhild observed his agitation. “It is all over 
now,” she told him. “Mokakala is dead !” 

“Dead!” he echoed, “and — and — ” He floun- 
dered about hopelessly. 

“Do you mean Eauna? She, too, is dead,” she 
volunteered. 

Again he trembled violently. “Eauna — dead!” 
he muttered. 

An expression of abhorrence leaped to her eyes. 
“You must have known she would die!” she cried 
with slight scorn. “Our God is extremely angry 



THB WHITE DAWN 


247 


when his most divine laws are disregarded. He 
tolerates no monstrosities. Launa, in compliance 
with these provisions, had to die, while you, by the 
divine grace of God, are still alive and with an op- 
portunity to lead a clean life, to take your proper 
place in your community and in your home, as hus- 
band and father.’’ 

“Their power over us mortals is so terrible,” he 
whimpered. “They are not fair, the dreadful crea- 
tures, they assume other people’s faces and forms. 
They lead you where they list, and you have no 
power of resistance.” 

Again she lifted her scorn-filled eyes to him. 

“Magnus came into the elf-people’s realm,” she 
said, “and they had no power over him. No more 
power, forsooth, than the stones beneath his feet. 
Think you not the elf-maidens tried their wiles on 
him ? Yet he never yielded, never could have yielded 
to their sorcery. W ould you know why ?” 

Oyvind nodded. 

“He was innocent,” she said. 

He sat for a moment silent, his head bowed over 
his hands that twitched nervously as he held them 
tightly clenched between his knees. 

“Has Launa been dead long?” he asked. 

Brynhild shook her head. “Not long,” she re- 
plied. “But long enough so she escaped the last 
dreadful scenes. They are all dead within the moun- 
tain.” 

“All dead?” echoed Oyvind terror-stricken. 


248 


THE WHITE DAWN 


“Yes. This morning, when Mokakala heard the 
church bells, he knew you had broken one promise 
and would break the others. He then determined to 
submerge the tjern and kill all those who were upon 
it. A stronger power asserted itself, however, and 
you should have heard him then! The mountain 
fairly rocked under his curses. 

“There was only one dreadful thing left for him 
to do, and he did that. With one mighty jerk he 
dislodged the arrangements for controlling the moun- 
tain-fires. Now the fumes which for the last thou- 
sand years have been burned to give light and heat 
to the underearthlings escaped into the mountain 
and must before now have killed every living thing.’' 

“And you, how did you manage your escape?” 
he asked breathlessly. 

“Luck was with us. That very day Mokakala 
had planned to send Hans after you, no matter 
where he should find you, so he had the key to the 
mechanism that permits the great rock to swing. 
We had all we could do to get there and let the rock 
fall back before the gasses followed in, enough quan- 
tity to make us unconscious.” 

“Then from the inner edge of the mountain?” he 
asked. 

“We followed the little path thru the wall and 
gained the strip of water left along the mountain so 
you could return as you had promised. As soon as 
we gained the meadow we saw the procession. I 
knew from my husband’s description that it was a 


THE WHITE DAWN 


249 


religious service. For the first time in my life I 
was genuinely happy. Now I should have the privi- 
lege of being baptized. Now I should be able to live 
under the sun. I should have the right to call upon 
my husband’s God. It was wonderful ! 

“I was as a child who had been lost in the desert, 
and for weeks and months had called upon his par- 
ents in vain when they were not there to listen. I 
was like one who had sought blindly, futilely, and 
suddenly found them there, face to face with himself. 
Oh, I shall never be able to tell you. There are no 
words in my language to describe the desolation of a 
heart that dares not lift its voice to God — of the 
human being who dares not look to anything higher 
than those like his own, sordid self. Even you, who 
have felt the touch of the beast, you can have no 
conception of its meaning!” 

“I understand something of it from the story I 
read in thoise haunted eyes,” he returned. ‘T thought 
after Olaf brought the learning of the White Christ, 
that my pagan religion had been a mere drawback 
to me. I see now that, crude and inadequate as it 
is, it had the power of raising us immeasurably over 
what we should have been without it. I see, too, 
that, inadequate as it is, it is a faint echo of the pure 
God-religion that must have been taught to our fore- 
fathers in the dim past, perhaps in a far-away region, 
whence they came into the high North. No one has 
told me, but I see it now that I have come in contact 
with those who were godless. I see that it has made 


250 


THE WHITE DAWN 


our people much bigger and better than they other- 
wise would have been.” 

'‘I think you have the right idea,” she said. *‘But 
even now you don’t understand, and I can not ex- 
plain. It is as if some one who had always been 
blind should try to explain to one not so afflicted the 
sufferings of those who can not see. In the upper 
world, no matter where you go, you find people hav- 
ing something higher than themselves to love, to 
worship, something that leads them upward, away 
from themselves. In the nether world it is not so. 
There they are away from the God-influence. There 
they are away from the listening ear, forbidden, at 
that, to worship, forbidden to pray, forbidden to 
hope. 

“Human intellect can not grasp the terror in this 
position. They are away from the influence that 
creates the difference between the beast and the hu- 
man being, from the influence that creates the differ- 
ence between heaven and perdition.” 

At nightfall Oyvind disappeared. In the darkness 
and bitterness of her soul, darker than ever after the 
momentary glimpse of light, Gunlaug wept thru the 
night. As she was passing in and out she had 
caught snatches of the conversation between her hus- 
band and Br>mhild. She had not understood much, 
but she had caught the significance of what they said 
about Launa. 03wind had done the elf-woman a 
wrong, so great that had Brynhild not been a Chris- 


THU WHITH DAWN 


251 


tian she would have hated him with a hot, scornful 
hatred. 

In the early morning he returned. In the bright 
sunshine he stood before her, smiling. Her heart 
gave a sudden, joyful bounce. It was the old, boyish 
smile, the rougish up-cutting of the Ups she had so 
loved. 

He said not a word, but took her by the hand and 
silently led her to the foot of the cliff, from where 
they climbed up and sat on their ledge. He still re- 
tained her hand while they sat, she with her eyes on 
his face, he smilingly looking down at the wold 
below. 

For the first time he felt real pleasure in his pos- 
sessions, in the wide fields, in the splendid flocks, 
grazing on the tender aftermath, and in the cozy 
circle of houses that constituted their home. 

Then he rais.ed his eyes to hers. “I must talk 
freely with you,” he said. “The White Christ and 
the great God have forgiven me, now I must ask 
your forgiveness for all the suffering I have brought 
to you, dearest.” 

“You needn’t think you must wait for your par- 
don til you have told your story,” she said gently. 
“I have forgiven always.” 

It was then that he told her about his visit among 
the underearthlings, about Mokakala and the earth- 
ling queen with her child and servant. But not once 
did he mention Launa. Was there still to be a secret 
chamber in his heart? 


252 


THE WHITE DAWN 


“And so,” he concluded, “my sin lay in making 
three promises. First, that I should never permit a 
church-bell to ring on the meadow; second, that I 
would not allow my first daughter to be baptized ; 
and third, that when she was a year old I would 
bring her into the mountain, to the queen of the 
underearthlings.” 

“How could you make such a promise, Oyvind?” 
she asked. 

“It all seemed so remote, so unreal. Who could 
imagine there would ever be occasion to ring a 
church-bell on the meadow? As for the other, I did 
not expect ever to see you, the advent of a daughter 
seemed wholly unreal.” 

“And what did they want of my baby ?” she asked, 
shuddering. 

“I told you about the curse. It was to be lifted 
only when, in succession, three earthlings had sat on 
Mokakala’s throne. It was planned that our daughter 
should mate with Brynhild’s son and their child 
should be the third earthling ruler. Then the curse 
would be taken away. The underearthlings would 
thenceforth be permitted to live under the sun, they’d 
have a soul, a God.” 

“But perhaps it would have been right for us to 
give our child. If Jehovah wanted it, why shouldn’t 
we? He was their Jehovah, our God.” 

“No,” he returned, “according to promise, they 
might have those who otherwise would lose their 
lives in the tjern. Our daughter is not one of those. 


THU WHITE DAWN 


253 

Mokakala was disobedient. Xherefore he was at 
last destroyed, he and all his people.” 

“That, then, was what made you so unhappy?” 
she asked. 

He nodded. “It was terrible, that promise. It 
stood before me in letters of fire! You can well 
understand why I had such fear when you told me 
a child was under way.” 

“But why did you stay away all summer?” she 
asked. i 

I . . 

“Don’t you understand, dearest, that I tried to 
make it so lonely for you that you’d take the little 
ones and come to me. I was prepared to endure 
anything if it would only bring you away from that 
dreadful meadow.” 

“Then why did you not tell me?” she asked in 
surprise. 

“Don’t you see, dearest, I couldn’t,” he returned. 
“Don’t you see that with the first word I should be 
breaking my promise. Then destruction would be 
quick and sure. Don’t you remember yesterday? 
That was what I feared. And I could do nothing. 
I was in their power. I know now that nothing 
except the White Christ can overcome such spirits 
of darkness as those who lived within the mountain.” 

He paused and sat for a while gazing over the 
wold beneath them. This was all, then. He did not 
mean to speak of the real thing that had made 


254 


THE WHITE DAWN 


trouble between them. He was not going to speak 
about Launa. She moved her lips in silent prayer, 
calling upon the true God for guidance. 

“Is that all, then, Oyvind? Had you no further 
experiences in the heart of the mountain?’^ she asked 
almost in a whisper. 

He hunched forward into the old, dejected atti- 
tude she remembered so well, his eyes still on the 
scene below them, but he said nothing. 

“It was not because of your promises that you 
made those long and frequent visits into the moun- 
tain, Oyvind.” 

“You have reason for what you say, Gunlaug,” 
he replied slowly, “but the rest is of such a painful 
nature that I hate to speak.” 

“But now that we have this heart-to-heart talk, 
is it not better that we have it all understood ? Then 
we can bury it, you know,” she said gently. “Don’t 
you think you’ll feel happier if you talk it over with 
me, Oyvind?” 

“Perhaps you are right, perhaps I should tell you 
about Launa,” he returned in a low voice. 

“As you may know, she was an elf-maiden and, 
like the others, she desired to capture a spark of a 
human soul that would live after her body should 
have passed into corruption. They fear no pain, no 
punishment that might be destined to prevent their 
attempt to subdue an earthling. They fear nothing 
except the absolute annihilation which attends their 
demise. Burning at the stake would not dissuade 


THE WHITE DAWN 


255 


them in their attempt to throw their fire-iron over 
an earthling and, in his weakness, conquer him/’ 

“Is that the way a man becomes mountain- 
taken?” Gunlaug asked with white lips. “And you, 
were you mountain-taken?” 

He shook his head. “In all but one part,” he 
replied. “Launa never threw her fire-iron over me.” 

“But your terror? Your uncanny visits to the 
mountain?” she persisted. 

He, sat silent for a moment. Then he dropped 
her hand and folded his arms across his breast. 

“I came to a great extent under Launa’s influ- 
ence,” he said slowly. “She controlled me utterly 
under the full moon.” 

“But Launa died,” she whispered. 

“Yes,” he returned. “She died. It removed the 
curse from me.” 

“But why should she? I heard Brynhild speak 
to you of it. I think I understand its hidden mean- 
mg. 

He rose to his feet, lifted her up and stood fac- 
ing her. 

“Yes, it has a hidden meaning, a dreadful mean- 
ing, but why should we now speak of that? Now 
we understand each other fully, let us bury it all 
from our sight! The White Christ and the great 
God have forgiven me. You said but now you had 
forgiven me always. 

“As you see, it is all away. As the disease which 
has been cured it is gone, and it leaves no conta- 


256 


THE WHITE DAWN 


gion. Brush away all those cobwebs of suspicion 
that must have formed within your range of vision, 
and try to see in me a new man, cleansed. Come 
out of your dreadful suffering, Gunlaug. Forgive 
me ! Come to me !” 

Gunlaug saw the wisdom of his speech. With a 
happy laugh she went to him, and her husband’s 
caresses removed the painful memories, as when the 
housewife’s brush removes the tangled web of the 
spider from some unused corner, making it sweet 
and clean. With her head against her husband’s 
breast she bade farewell to all her suspicions and 
all her fears, which she never permitted to return 
with their phantoms of ugliness. 

They walked back, hand in hand, like happy 
children. There was so much to do, to plan, to live 
after those years of suffering. They must catch up 
with the music and laughter, with the singing and 
dancing, with the little ones. Ah, the little ones ! 
It seemed to them that in their new-found happi- 
ness they had just then become husband and wife, 
just then become parents. 

That night Oyvind mended his harp. When Gun- 
laug was preparing her little ones for bed she heard 
the loved tones, and tears of gladness rolled down 
her cheeks. Her dreams, at last, had come true! 

And so it came to pass that the place which so 
long had been shunned by the young and happy, be- 
came the meeting-place for all. Here was feasting 
as of yore, and without the blessing of the remem- 


THU WHITE DAWN 


257 


brance-cups. There were dancing and singing, the 
music of the harp, light, laughter, and gladness. 
There were happy conversation and children’s prattle. 
Thorold and Guthorm met there in many a cozy 
hour of reminiscence. 

During the long winter evenings, while the great 
logs blazed on the hearth, Oyvind’s harp was rarely 
silent. He and Gunlaug loved friends and sociabil- 
ity. Nobly were they making up for the sad, silent 
years. 


CHAPTER XL 


INCE then centuries have rolled away. Al- 
most a thousand years have passed into ages 
that were. They may have been long or 
they may have been short. That depends upon how 
they have been lived. Still do the pagan gods live, 
they require so little of us, the pagan gods. The 
evil lives, too, the evil as exemplified in the lives 
of the underearthlings. But the conquest of the 
White Christ still continues. Over and above, and 
thru the entire structural life of the people, lives 
the Spirit of the White Christ. He who in the 
days of Olaf came into the lives of the Vikings, is 
still there. 

In that same, narrow valley, too, live the descend- 
ants of Oyvind and Gunlaug. They were a sturdy 
pair. Mokakala chose well. If you are a tourist 
and fond of seeking uncommon places, uncommon 
life-histories, perhaps you’ll find their people. They 
will tell you of Oyvind’s visit to the underearthlings 
and its dreadful consequences. They will show you 
the meadow with its church, standing on the very 
site of Olaf’s structure, the church built by the 
Vikings and dedicated by Bishop Sigurd. They will 
point to the black, sullen pond, an ever present wit- 



THB WHITE DAWN 


259 


ness to the power of the White Christ over the 
spirits of darkness. 

They will lead yon across the meadow, all dotted 
with cats-paw, tar-blossom, daisies, and the pretty, 
golden key-flower, to the narrow strip of water 
hugging the mountain. It still lies there, black and 
sullen, as if it were waiting for a day when the tjem 
shall break its shackles and once more occupy the 
mountain-bowl that now holds the fertile meadow. 
They will point out to you the narrow path along 
its sides, leading into the mountain, along which 
Brynhild and Hans and the little mountain-born 
earthling made their escape. 

Perhaps you'll spend a night on the meadow, 
lying close to the water when the moon is round and 
full. Then you will hear sobbing as if some one 
grieved endlessly, as over something which had been 
lost for centuries and would remain lost for other 
centuries to come. 

When the big sun comes peeping over the high 
mountain, you’ll tell your friends that it was the wind 
soughing thru the pines on the mountain side. But 
alone, under the full moon, your ideas were different. 
You knew then that the tiny spark of a living soul 
— that which Laima stole from Oyvind — is there, 
waiting, waiting to grow. Perhaps it will grow into 
something that is to find happiness, perhaps not. 
Who knows? It is there, the spark lives, grows; 
neglected, perhaps, for the time being, but in time 
it must come to its own. 


260 


THE WHITE DAWN 


You may be wrong entirely. Perhaps Launa 
grieves that, Prometheus-like, she tried to filch that 
which the Master had not meant for her. Perhaps, 
forsooth, she thinks a thousand years of a dim, in- 
adequate existence, with other such periods to come, 
is too big a price to pay for a mere glimmer of love, 
light, and happiness that but for her forefathers’ sin 
should, in full measure, have been hers for aeons of 
time. 

You may regard this story a figment from a 
dream of an addled brain, or you may think these 
things were. It should open your heart and eyes to 
the privileges that are yours. Perhaps your thoughts 
have soared among the clouds, perhaps you have 
kept the garments of your soul spotless. Perhaps 
you have saturated them in the gutter. Perhaps 
your soul is but a tiny, flickering spark. Who knows 
but yourself? 

But you are not in the position of the under- 
earthlings. You have the privilege of addressing 
the Supreme Power that made you. You are worth 
as much as a man as you would be as an angel. 
But you must accept the help which alone can ele- 
vate you above your brute-self. You must accept 
that which leads you onward and upward, or live 
in danger of becoming a soulless beast, a slimy 
serpent. 

Had you none to whom you could go in prayer, 
your life would be one of hopelessness and de- 
spair, like Laima’s. Those with whom you come in 


THB WHITE DAWN 


261 


contact would be polluted as was Oyvind. Whether 
or not you possess faith in the true God, some- 
thing bigger than your puny self, makes the dif- 
ference between the human and the soulless. It 
makes the difference that exists between heaven and 
perdition. 





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